The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday faulted the report of a civil society organisation, Yiaga Africa, on the just concluded governorship election in Edo state.

A day after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Monday Okpebholo as the winner of the September 21 governorship poll, the CSO said the election failed the integrity test and was manipulated.

But in a statement, APC spokesman, Felix Morka, said alleging that the election results were manipulated “without hard facts and figures is a disservice to the process”.

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“INEC is the sole statutory authority for the conduct and declaration of result of the election. Yiaga Africa is not, and must desist from constituting itself into a parallel agency for the declaration of election result,” Morka said.

“Yiaga Africa’s report is a travesty, replete with methodological flaws, politicized observations, inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and calls 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 result or second guessing results declared by INEC in performance of its statutory duties, falls beyond their observation mandate.”

According to Morka, the outcome of the election is a rejection of the “bad governance” of the administration led by Godwin Obaseki, outgoing governor of Edo.