SATURDAY’S governorship election in Ekiti State has a fundamental significance that appears to have eluded the punditry of most of those that have weighed in with analysis. Some say the victory was down to Governor-elect Ayo Fayose’s charisma which struck a welcome chord with the state’s flotsam and jetsam who constitute the vast majority.

Others say that Governor Kayode Fayemi crushing defeat was because his of tenure’s most successful record of under-performance. A third viewpoint is that Fayemi achieved as a Governor but ran an elitist campaign which, understandably, meant that he hollered through a loudhailer that, if anything, assailed the eardrums of those he rallied for a fresh mandate – the inhabitants of the trench towns.

Whatever is the truth of each of the viewpoints, the most important explanation for Fayemi’s landmark electoral walloping is that the man travelled in a vehicle the masses did not believe was capable of delivering them at a destination they would recognise.

Who is going to readily board an aircraft certified by experts to have a 50 percent chance of crashing? Thus, there was Governor Fayemi aboard a patently unsafe vehicle, screaming himself hoarse, asking disinterested voters to come ride with him.

No, they responded emphatically, we ain’t gonna ride to our doom! The people of Ekiti, the land of Professors, had their case made for them by the masses, the same masses that clearly saw what seasoned analysts are currently glossing over.

Let’s get to brass tacks. When the All Progressives Congress, APC, surfaced from a coalition of disparate political parties and a motley collection of strange political bedfellows, even people who were supposed to know much better joined the bandwagon of hailing it as an alternative to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

But the APC was alternative to nothing; it was far from an alternative even unto itself. The APC represented no option to any other political party. It was a rainbow coalition of all sorts. To the informed, therefore, it was obvious that the meretricious association would sooner come to grief.

How could something constitute an alternative to something else when it did not posit any options, except abuses, diatribe and incendiary effluvia? APC cheerleaders did not want to answer this question. All they knew was that APC was the new dawn Nigeria was eagerly awaiting.

The APC took on President Goodluck Jonathan and abused him to very tiny pieces. They demonised him as a matter of course. They calumniated him with the constancy of a devout man’s daily prayers. They castigated the President with impunity.

They even went abroad and returned with hired foreign champions of invectives and diatribe. They failed to understand that their mordant attacks and their broadsides did not represent a political alternative to the status quo.

They refused to reckon with the fact that abuses do not win arguments. The point was made that people were not bound to love or support the Nigerian president. But the President happened to occupy a high constitutional position, a proposition that demanded the respect of all citizens.

The APC disagreed and continued with the abuses and the inflammatory remarks. A few samplers: This is Alhaji Ahmed Tinubu in The Punch of April 24, 2014: “They are already planning to rig elections but be ready to protect your votes; nobody serves you freedom a la carte. It is going to be rig and roast. We are prepared not to go to court but to drive you out.”

This is General Muhammadu Buhari in the Vanguard of May 15, 2012: “God willing, by 2015, something will happen. They either conduct free and fair elections or they go a very disgraceful way. If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would be soaked in blood.”

This is Alhaji Nasir el-Rufai in Thisday of January 23, 2014: “The next election is likely going to be violent and many people are going to die. And the only alternative to get power is to take it by force…”. And, finally, this is Governor Rauf Aregbesola: “Make sure you go to cast your ballots with everything. I am not saying you should go there with guns but the law does not frown against charms…”.

How can all this venom represent an alternative to peace and respect for human life? Yet, the worst thing done by the APC was to play politics with the scourge of Boko Haram. Rather than join hands to fight the terrorists, the APC believed it could convert the bombing, killing, maiming and abductions of Nigerians into electoral votes!

Back to Ekiti State, the abuses continued. The APC kept calling Ayo Fayose a thug. They did not conclude a sentence until they had described him as an illiterate. They claimed that he was not his own man, that he would at Government House, Ado Ekiti, be nothing other than an Abuja imposition. In all their “progressive” wisdom they failed to understand that railing at a man connected with his people would ultimately turn out to be counter-productive.

The APC, despite the encompassing claims that it was teeming with intellection, failed to pay attention to contemporary history. Had they bothered about the history of the last few years, it would have occurred to them that Ekiti was previously a PDP state and that the current APC governorship incumbency there and even in Osun State were down to highly contentious judicial pronouncements.

Then it came down to the wire. And Fayose administered, not just on Fayemi but on the APC itself, a resounding electoral bashing. Fayose won in all the 16 local government areas of the state. Indeed, his victory was so total that it left every APC bigwig speechless. This means that the ordinary people of this country know on which side their bread is buttered.

They found no viable alternative to the politics of the one who ensured a free, fair, violent-free and credible gubernatorial election in Ekiti State. They have in a most decisive way reiterated the fact that the one who proclaimed that no Nigerian deserved to die on account of another’s political ambition is preferable to the proponents of fire and brimstone.

That is why Dr. John Kayode Fayemi will soon vacate Government House, Ado-Ekiti, setting in motion a process that will systematically sweep away with their own brooms the last vestiges of hate politics from the entity.

CHUKS ILOEGBUNAM, a commentator on national issues, wrote from  journalist, wrote from Lagos.