Michael Abbey, Chief Executive Officer of Venture Capital Trust Fund, has urged members of the Tertiary Education Institutions Network (TEIN) of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to deepen their understanding of the party’s ideological history and challenge narratives he considers misleading.
Speaking at the National TEIN Conference, which brought together student members from tertiary institutions across Ghana on Friday, October 16, Mr. Abbey said the party’s intellectual base must be equipped with adequate knowledge of its historical development and ideological foundations.
He said understanding the NDC’s history, particularly the periods preceding its formal adoption of social democracy, was essential to responding to criticisms of the party’s political journey.
“The constitution of the NDC, in Article 5, defines the philosophy of the party. And it says that the party is a social democratic party that believes in the equality and the egalitarianity of each person, irrespective of their social, cultural, educational, political, religious, economic relations,” he said.
Mr. Abbey explained that although the NDC formally adopted social democracy as its ideology in December 2002, the party had existed long before that decision.
He said the party’s political history included the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) eras, which he argued should be understood within their historical context rather than dismissed.
“At least, if you do not take anything away from this conference, know that the era of AFRC and PNDC was not a period where nothing is away, where we vandalized businesses, made a profit, where the NDC just destroyed everything, as the NPP always have the habit,” he said.
Mr. Abbey criticised what he described as a tendency by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to condemn the AFRC era while giving greater recognition to the PNDC period.
He urged TEIN members to equip themselves with facts about the party’s history and ideology to enable them to respond to criticism and contribute meaningfully to political discourse.
“That is why they, as the intellectual base of the NDC, must be armed with information, knowledge about our history, about our ideology,” he said.
He further stressed that the NDC’s social democratic philosophy was founded on equality and inclusion, regardless of an individual’s social, cultural, educational, religious or economic background.
According to him, the party’s ideological position reflects its commitment to providing a political home for people from different backgrounds without discrimination.
The National TEIN Conference serves as a platform for student members of the NDC from tertiary institutions nationwide to engage on the party’s ideology, history and organisational development, while strengthening their participation in political and democratic processes.
