Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the governor of Enugu State, lost his candidacy for the Senate to Okechukwu Ezea, the Labour Party (LP) candidate for the district.
Mr. Ugwuanyi, who is completing his second term as governor, is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the 25 February election in the Enugu North Senatorial District.
At around 5:20 a.m. on Monday, the Returning Officer for the election, Chukwuemeka Ubaka, announced the results at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) collation center in the Nsukka Local Government Area headquarters.
Mr. Ezea, the LP candidate, received 104,492 votes to defeat Mr. Ugwuanyi, the PDP candidate, who received 46,948 votes.
Ejike Eze, the candidate for the All Progressives Congress in the district, received 6,816 votes, placing him in a distant third place.
Mr. Ubaka, a professor, stated that Mr. Ezea was proclaimed the winner because he “met all the standards of the law” and received the most votes in the election.
Mr. Ubaka, the returning officer, stated that he would not compile the senatorial results unless he was provided with the district’s official paperwork for results and declaration.
Several LP members had accused the returning officer of conspiring with an anonymous opposition candidate to reverse the election’s outcome.
Mr. Ezea reportedly won in nearly all of the six local government areas that make up the district, according to the results of the election in those areas.
Mr. Ugwuanyi is from Udenu, one of the six council areas that comprise the district, along with Nsukka, Igbo-Eze South, Igbo-Eze North, Igbo-Etiti, and Uzo-Uwani.
Mr. Ugwuanyi’s defeat marked the first time in the state’s history that an opposition political party defeated a candidate of the incumbent PDP.
Since the advent of democracy in 1999, the PDP had never lost an election in the state.
Chukwuka Utazi, the incumbent senator for the district, resigned in favor of Mr. Ugwuanyi prior to the May 2013 PDP primary election for the district.
Mr. Ugwunanyi is a member of the G5 group of PDP governors that reject Atiku Abubakar, their party’s presidential nominee. After two terms as governor of the state, he will leave office on May 29 of this year.