The presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Prince Adewole Adebayo has said the fight against corruption in Nigeria needs to start among top government officials for it to be successful.

Prince Adebayo made the assertion on Wednesday while speaking at the Centre for Awareness on Justice and Accountability (CAJA) Integrity Award Public Lecture.

The event was organised by CAJA in collaboration with The Penlight Centre was themed: ‘Promoting Integrity as a Way of Fighting Corruption’.

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A statement by the presidential candidate a copy of which was made available to INFO DAILY said the Prince Adebayo said if elected in to power his party will change the mode of fighting corruption, stressing that Nigeria has been getting it wrong all these while.

He said, “We are getting something wrong in Nigeria; government cannot fight corruption in Nigeria, government can only fight corruption inside government. Why we have failed is that government is not fighting corruption inside government but is fighting corruption inside other people’s bed room, so we’ll change that”.

He further noted that there was need to watch out for the institutions used to fight corruption because corruption is capable of capturing institutions.

“Corruption is dangerous to institutions; any institution that you can use to fight corruption, corruption will capture it. So, we must watch out for institutions, including religious institutions”.

“The thieves sit in the front and the hard working people sit at the back when you go to the mosque or you go to the Church. So you have to make sure these institutions are not captured”, Prince Adebayo said.

He further said that government must be willing to keep policemen with integrity at the top in order to help tackle the problem of corruption.

“There’s a fight between the police and the government – a good policeman knows that people in government will go to jail, that is why they look around to look for bad policemen to put on top of the good policemen”.

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Dignitaries present at the event were: Prof. Usman Yusuf, Professor of Haematology-Oncology, Former Executive Secretary, National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS); Barr. Solomon Dalung, Former Minister, Federal Ministry of Youth & Sport Development; Malam Auwal Musa Rafsanjan, Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative Centre (CISLAC); Kabiru Dakata, Executive Director, CAJA.

Others include; Pst Ade Alabi; Pst Light; Engineer Yusuf Salisu Buhari; SDP vice presidential candidate, Sen. Ugochukwu Uba; Mr Patrick Anethua; Chief Godwin Osigbeme, members of the SDP Presidential campaign organization and others.