The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described Yiaga Africa’s report alleging that results were manipulated without hard facts and figures but based on some statistical guess work as a clear disservice to the electoral process.
It noted that alleging that results were manipulated without hard facts and figures but based on some statistical guess work was a clear disservice to the electoral process.
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Felix Morka in a statement issued Tuesday was a travesty, replete with methodological flaws, politicized observations and called its credibility into question.
He said the people of Edo State were loud and clear in their choice of Senator Monday Okpebholo as the next Governor to lead the state into a new era of peace, unity, people-centered development and prosperity for all.
Morka stressed that election observer missions are not election management agencies and cannot usurp INEC’s statutory authority as the sole election management body in Nigeria.
He added that doing so would constitute a clear breach of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The ruling party stressed that election observer missions are not election management agencies and cannot usurp INEC’s statutory authority as the sole election management body in Nigeria.
Morka added that doing so would constitute a clear breach of the Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He said: “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 result.
“Alleging that results were manipulated without hard facts and figures but based on some statistical guess work is a clear disservice to the electoral process.
“Yiaga Africa’s report is a travesty, replete with methodological flaws, politicized observations, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and called its credibility into question.”
The party, therefore, urged Yiaga Africa to refrain from enlisting itself in the season’s annals of infamy, alongside the likes of Governor Godwin Obaseki and his illegal and sinister midnight invasion of INEC’s offices, and Governor Ahmadu Fintiri’s illegal declaration of bogus election result.
The party noted that overreaching its election observer mission to second-guess the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the result of last Saturday’s Edo state gubernatorial election.
He maintained that 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 result or second guessing result declared by INEC in performance of its statutory duties, falls beyond their observation mandate.