The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has derided the Peoples Democratic Party’s 2025 national convention, describing the gathering as nothing more than a “funeral in disguise.’’

It stated that the party has slipped irredeemably into political insignificance.

In a statement on Sunday, the Lagos APC’s spokesman, Oluseye Oladejo, said the convention, promoted by the PDP as a moment of renewal, exposed instead the depth of its internal rot and the extent of its waning influence across the country.

Mr Oladejo said the convention played out “like a political obsequy,” adding that a party that once considered itself untouchable now appears to be struggling for survival.

One of the most telling signs of the PDP’s turmoil, the Lagos APC noted, was the conspicuous absence of several of the party’s own key figures, including sitting governors and senior stakeholders whose non-attendance, it said, “spoke louder than any communiqué.”

According to the statement, delegates from at least 13 states also stayed away entirely, an absence the APC described as a symbolic confirmation that the PDP “is not just unwell but clinically unresponsive.”

The Lagos APC further highlighted the Independent National Electoral Commission’s refusal to monitor the event, saying it amounted to a “final stamp” on what it called a political farce.

It stated that without INEC’s oversight, the convention was reduced to a mere gathering stripped of legitimacy.

“What should have been a moment of introspection and renewal became an opportunity for its dwindling membership to gather and say their formal farewell,” the APC said, accusing the PDP of avoiding the deeper issues that had plagued it, including leadership vacuums, ideological drift and repeated electoral losses.

The APC warned that the party’s inability to reposition itself posed risks to Nigeria’s democratic development, stressing that a functional opposition was vital for accountability and national stability.

The statement stated, “A democracy without credible opposition is weakened. But the PDP, in its comatose state, offers nothing beyond noise.”

As political attention gradually shifted toward the 2027 general elections, the Lagos APC said the PDP’s internal chaos had already set the tone for what it believed would be a disastrous outing for the opposition party.

The spokesperson contrasted the PDP’s struggles with what he described as the APC’s steady consolidation of governance reforms under President Bola Tinubu, insisting that Nigerians have already chosen “progress over nostalgia.”

The party concluded with a poser directed at the PDP and its supporters: “Was this truly a convention, or the formal burial of a fading political empire?”

It asserted that the PDP had become “a refuge for internally displaced politicians” and no longer represents a viable national alternative.