PDP Convention: Lagos APC mocks opposition over no-show by 13 states

…Says event ‘like a funeral’

By Grace Edet

The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has slammed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over its 2025 national convention.

It described the event as a “funeral in disguise’’ marked by the absence of delegates from 13 states and several of the party’s top leaders.

In a strongly worded statement issued yesterday, Lagos APC spokesperson Oluseye Oladejo said the convention, touted by the PDP as a moment of renewal, exposed only the party’s “irreversible decline” and deepening internal crisis.

Oladejo said the gathering “played out like a political obsequy,” arguing that a party that once dominated national politics now appears to be “struggling for survival.”

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

He added that the absence of delegates from at least 13 states was a symbolic confirmation that the PDP “is not just unwell but clinically unresponsive.’’

The Lagos APC also pointed to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) refusal to monitor the convention, describing it as the “final stamp” that reduced the exercise to a political farce.

According to Oladejo, “What should have been a moment of introspection and renewal became an opportunity for its dwindling membership to gather and say their formal farewell.”

He accused the PDP of refusing to confront the issues that have weakened it for years—leadership vacuums, ideological drift, and a long trail of electoral defeats.

The party warned that the PDP’s inability to reorganise itself poses a danger to the country’s democratic health.

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

With political attention gradually shifting toward the 2027 general elections, the Lagos APC argued that the PDP’s disarray has already set the stage for what it predicted would be another disastrous outing for the opposition.

Contrasting the opposition’s troubles with what it described as the governing party’s progress, Oladejo said the APC under President Bola Tinubu is “steadily consolidating governance reforms,” adding that Nigerians have chosen “progress over nostalgia.’’

The statement ended with a rhetorical jab at the PDP: “Was this truly a convention, or the formal burial of a fading political empire?”

The APC maintained that the opposition party has become “a refuge for internally displaced politicians” and no longer represents a credible national alternative.