Yiaga Africa Must Stop Second-Guessing INEC’s Authority In Edo – APC

The All Progressives Congress has come out to caution civil society organization, Yiaga Africa against undermining the Independent National Electoral Commission by questioning the results of the recently concluded Edo State gubernatorial election.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka recently had his say via a press statement, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he cannot ignore the clear attempts by the group to second-guess INEC’s authority, and the group cannot keep overstepping their mandate as election observers.

He added that election observer missions are not election management agencies, so Yiaga Africa should know their place.

His words, “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.

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.

Election observer missions are not election management agencies and cannot usurp INEC’s statutory authority as the sole election management body in 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.”

WOW.