The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Saturday’s Senatorial by-election in Enugu North, Enugu State, Dr Nestor Ezeme has rejected the outcome of the exercise, saying he would approach the court to recover the mandate.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ikeje Asogwa, as the winner of the Enugu North Senatorial by-election.

Announcing the result at the INEC office in Nsukka in the early hours of Sunday, the Returning Officer, Professor Christian Ezeibe, said Asogwa secured 162,360 votes to defeat Ezeme, who garnered 9,299 votes.

Reacting to the outcome, the Director of Media and Strategy Communication for the Ikeje Asogwa Campaign Organisation, Samson Ezea, described the victory as a clear reflection of the widespread support enjoyed by the APC candidate across the six local government areas in the Enugu North Senatorial District.

But Ezeme kicked against results, alleging that it was a “pure” manipulation and did not reflect th actual voting by the people of the zone.

“We reject it completely. I am going to challenge the result in court. We will recover the mandate from the court because it was freely given to us by the people of the zone”, he stated.

Ezeme, further alleged that the ruling party had created violence and electoral manipulation during the election on Saturday inorder to churn out any result in favour of the party.

The PDP candidate,  alleged that the electoral process was  undermined by intimidation and interference from government officials.

“Virtually in all the local governments, you see local government chairmen, commissioners and other government officials moving from one polling unit to another trying to manipulate the system,” he alleged.

Ezeme also alleged that violence erupted at Ofu Ogu Polling Unit in Ovoko Ward, Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area, where his party chairman was attacked.

According to him, the chairman sustained severe injuries and was receiving treatment in hospital following the incident.

“My party chairman is so critical in the hospital that I fear for his life,” he said, alleging that armed men invaded the polling unit, attacked party members and disrupted voting.

He further claimed that motorcycles belonging to PDP supporters were burnt during the attack and warned that despite what he described as a clear lead for his party at polling units, the outcome could still be altered during collation.

Meanwhile, the Coalition of Registered Political Parties (CRPP) in Enugu State described the exercise as “largely peaceful”, saying the  deployment of forged party agent tags by one of the political parties did not affect the exercise.

Chairman of the Coalition, Dr Afam Ani, who had acknowledged initial delay in the deployment of election materials at one distribution centre following disagreements among some party representatives, but added that the issue was resolved without affecting the overall conduct of the poll.

He described the turnout as encouraging. “In some places, the turnout is massive. In some places it is low, but generally I think the turnout is impressive,” he said.