It is no news that the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) affirmed the victory of President Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 polls.
Of note is the release of the Certified True Copies (CTCs) of the judgement with the internet version of the alleged CTC having an alleged “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team” header.
This made some people to allege that the judgement must have been prepared/scanned by the President’s legal team.
A member of President Tinubu’s legal team, Babatunde Ogala SAN, has made a clarification on the matter.
According to Ogala, the CTC’s were requested and paid for in the presence of the Peoples Democratic Party legal team and later watermarked for soft copies.
Read his statement below:
Following some mischievous insinuations being made in certain quarters regarding the innocuous water-mark of copies of the consolidated judgment of the Court of Appeal with the inscription -“Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT’”, it has become necessary to offer this clarification.
After the delivery of judgment in the 3 (Three) election petitions by the Court of Appeal on September 6, 2023, the Court directed its registry to make physical copies of same available on September 7, 2023.
Accordingly, the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team applied for a certified true copy of the said judgment and paid the prescribed fee.
Lawyers for PDP were present at the registry at the same time to collect the same judgment.
In fact, the representative of the PDP collected the first copy that was made available by the registry.
On collecting our own copy, we immediately scanned and water-marked with the inscription – “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT’” before circulating the scanned soft copies to the lawyers in our team.
The certified true copies issued to us and other parties in the petitions by the registry do not contain the said inscription and any insinuation to the contrary is untrue.
Counsel to the petitioners will also appreciate the fact that the insinuations being circulated in some quarters are untrue, unkind, unfair, and unfortunate, as they have the same certified copies of the judgment as we have.
*Babatunde OGALA, SAN; OFR.*
Coordinator, *TPLT*
