By Kenneth Atavti
President Bola Tinubu’s legal team at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) has called on the opposition to end what it called “mischief” over the watermark imprint on the certified copy of the tribunal’s judgement.
Recall that a 5-man panel of Justices had on Wednesday affirmed Tinubu the country’s duly elected President on the Feb. 25 poll, dismissing the petitions of PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and that of Peter Obi, candidate of Labour Party at election.
The opposition parties have alleged that the copies of the judgement distribute to them was watermarked with the inscription, “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT'” an allegation Tinubu’s legal team has denied.
In a statement on Saturday signed by the Coordinator of Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT), Babatunde Ogala, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, he copies received by his team and copies issued to the opposition PDP do not have the watermark.
He said the TPLT only stamped the inscription upon receipt of copies of the judgement.
Ogala said, “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.”
He called on Nigerians to ignore the insinuations that every copy of the judgement has the watermark, saying the team only imprinted the inscription.
He described as untrue, unkind, unfair, and unfortunate the rumour that certified copies of the judgement received by the opposition parties have the imprint.
Both Atiku and Obi have expressed dissatisfaction with the unanimous verdict of the panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani and have vowed to challenge it at the Supreme Court.
