We have a guest, a special guest on the programme this afternoon, and as usual, my job is to drag out the IDEAS content in his, in what he’s going to tell us.  Our guest is Mr. Tope Kolade Fashua. He is the Presidential candidate of the Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party. And, you’re welcome to the show.

Today on IDEAS segment with Ayo Obe, we will be looking at ethics, integrity, and accountability. Let me just read you a profile briefly, of today’s guest. Banky W …

Bankole Wellington: Yes sir!

AgO: … born Olubankole, Oluwabankole Wellington. … in films as Banky Wellington Nigerian singer, rapper and actor, now politician also too.

Bankole Wellington: Apparently so.

AgO: He was born on the 27th of March 1981 in the United States, but then moved back to Nigeria when he was five years old. Singing career started way back at the age of eight at church choir. He’s declared his intention to run for a seat in Nigeria’s House of Representatives, representing Lagos Eti-Osa Federal Constituency. He announced that he would run with the Modern Democratic Party which was formed last year.

Today on IDEAS segment with Ayo Obe, we’re looking at campaigns.  Campaigns are open and running just a couple of days into the campaign, and by extension into of course, the bigger show itself where we’ll also look at many of the issues associated with the campaign.

Today on IDEAS segment with Ayo Obe, we’ll be discussing campaign finance.  What is a free gift? And what is a financial contribution? For instance, a private jet for campaign, a gift?  To help us answer these questions will be Eze Onyekpere, who’s a lawyer and Executive Director of Centre for Social Justice.

So, big talking point, you know the campaign is supposed to open up on the 18th of November.  That’s exactly a week from now, but we’ve had some guys already beat the gun.  We’ve seen press statements from the Ministry of Information, already they are saying, saying a number of things, so there are all sorts of questions whether this is ethical or not to have incumbent and administrations talk about what they have achieved already in office before the campaign opened up, so big talking point that will be on IDEAS segment and on Countdown 2019.

Today, we’re going to be discussing, as [Aghogho] said, the latest incarnation of the Electoral Act, and you know that this Act has gone through many different incarnations, and something new always seems to be coming out.  But because the Policy Legislation Advocacy Centre has done, has looked at the Act for us, or the proposed Act, the Bill, for us, we have invited its Executive Director, Clement Nwankwo, who’s also the convener of the Situation Room, to help us understand whether or not this legislation is going to enhance the integrity of the electoral process.  There are so many different aspects to it, I’m not sure we can get through it all in the 15 minutes we have but, I would like to say

Our big topic today and on both the IDEAS segment and on the main programme is the substitution of names of some winners of primaries by political parties. It’s recipe for disaster eh? So reports that several political parties have conducted parallel primary elections different candidates, and INEC has the unenviable task of sifting the wheat from the chaff.

Our big topic today, on both on the IDEAS segment with Ayo Obe and on the main programme: Are we, the electorate, paying enough attention to the process of choosing vice presidential candidates and deputy governors.  Why is this important?  Because the VP or the Deputy Governor could become President or Governor in a variety of circumstances.

Our big topic today, both on the IDEAS segment of the programme and on the second half is the Party Primaries. What happened during the party primaries? Many questions about the party primaries. Different political parties utilised different variations of the primary system to elect or select candidates. We are going to be talking about those.

we’re here to talk about the issues of Integrity, Ethics, Accountability and their role in our Democracy. And I’m happy to have a guest with me, my first live guest in the studio. His name is Dr. Adeoye Joshua. He’s the pro tem Deputy National Secretary of the African Action Congress. He’s one of the founders and leaders of the Take It Back movement and I should also perhaps describe you as Chief of Staff to the presidential candidate of your party.