The All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned Yiaga Africa, a civil society group against undermining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by interrogating the results of the just concluded controversial Edo State governorship election.
The stern warning is coming after Yiaga issued a damning review of the exercise, declaring that the results from several polling units were altered at coalition centres.
The civil society coalition said the conduct of the election lacked credibility.
Similarly, Yiaga Africa, which said it deployed the Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) methodology for the poll, involving 300 stationary and 25 roving observers, covering a representative sample of polling units (PUs) across all 18 local government areas of the state, faulted the conduct of the poll and the declared results as lacking integrity.
But in a statement made by the spokesman of the ruling party, Felix Morka, on Tuesday, the APC berated Yiaga Africa for allegedly attempting to brush down INEC’s authority.
Angry Morka described the group’s report as overstepping their mandate as election observers.
“Yiaga Africa is overreaching its election observer mission by second-guessing INEC on the result of last Saturday’s Edo State gubernatorial election.
“INEC is the sole statutory authority for the conduct and declaration of election results. Yiaga Africa is not and must desist from constituting itself as a parallel agency for the declaration of election results,” Morka said.
Also, APC accused Yiaga of making phantom allegations regarding the manipulation of results, stating that these claims lacked supporting evidence and were based on speculative data.
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, politicised observations, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies,” Morka added.
Mr Morka further cautioned Yiaga Africa against sowing confusion by creating the appearance of a “parallel election process” through unverified and questionable statistical parameters.
He warned, “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.
“Declaring or second-guessing the Edo State gubernatorial result based on unsubstantiated, unverified, and highly questionable statistical parameters created by Yiaga Africa is designed to create unnecessary confusion.”
