Tinubu’s Legal Team Addresses Controversy Over Watermarked PEPT Judgement Copies

In the aftermath of the Presidential Elections Petition Tribunal (PEPT) upholding President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 general election, a controversy arose over watermarked copies of the judgement.

The Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT) has now stepped forward to provide clarification, dispelling rumours and speculations that had been circulating on social media.

TPLT coordinator, Babatunde Ogala, issued an official statement on Saturday to shed light on the matter. According to the statement, the watermarked copies of the judgement were generated by TPLT after they received a physical copy of the judgement from the Court of Appeal. Subsequently, these scanned copies were distributed among their legal team members.

The statement reads as follows:

“After the delivery of judgement in the 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 judgement and paid the prescribed fee.

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 watermarked it with the inscription “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT’” before circulating the scanned soft copies to the lawyers in our team.

The Certified True Copy issued to us and other parties in the petitions by the registry does not contain the said inscription, and any insinuation to the contrary is untrue.

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Counsel for 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 judgement as we have.”

The statement concludes by stressing that the insinuations circulating in certain quarters lack factual basis and are characterized as unkind, unfair, and unfortunate. TPLT firmly assures that all parties involved in the petitions have access to identical certified copies of the judgement.

In the wake of the PEPT’s ruling in favor of President Tinubu, both Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) have filed appeals with the Supreme Court to challenge the decision.