The All Progressives Congress (APC) has criticised Yiaga Africa’s report on the Edo gubernatorial election, which claimed that the result of the poll failed the integrity test.
The ruling party warned Yiaga Africa to desist from constituting itself into, a parallel agency for the declaration of election results.
APC gave the warning in a statement by the National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, on Tuesday, September 24.
The statement reads in part: “In its jostle for headline attention, Yiaga Africa, one of the many civil society organizations accredited by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is overreaching its election observer mission to second-guess INEC on the result of last Saturday’s Edo state gubernatorial election. INEC is the sole statutory authority for the conduct and declaration of results of the election. Yiaga Africa is not, and must desist from constituting itself into, a parallel agency for the declaration of election results.
“Alleging that results were manipulated without hard facts and figures but based on some statistical guesswork is a clear disservice to the electoral process. Yiaga Africa’s report is a travesty, replete with methodological flaws, politicized observations, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies, and called its credibility into question.
“Election observer missions are not election management agencies and cannot usurp INEC’s statutory authority as the sole election management body in Nigeria. Doing so would constitute a clear breach of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“While election observer missions, like Yiaga Africa, are at liberty to share their observations about the election process with INEC and the general public, however, declaring election results or second guessing results declared by INEC in performance of its statutory duties, falls beyond their observation mandate.
“Declaring or second-guessing the Edo state gubernatorial result based on unsubstantiated, unverified, highly questionable statistical parameters created by Yiaga Africa for Yiaga Africa is designed to create unnecessary confusion and the appearance of a parallel election process.”
Source: X | OfficialAPCNg
