Tinubu on September 6, was affirmed as the winner of the 2023 presidential election by PEPT
By Kehinde Okeowo
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu through his legal team has explained why his copy of the Presidential Elections Petition Tribunal (PEPT) judgement had a watermark.
The Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT) made the clarification after the watermarked copy shared by the president’s team stirred up debate on social media, with some Nigerians alleging a sinister move.
Responding to the allegation via a statement made available on Saturday, TPLT coordinator, Babatunde Ogala, said they watermarked their copy of the judgement after collecting it from the Court of Appeal before circulating the scanned copies to members of their team.
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The statement reads in part: “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.
“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.”
On Wednesday, September 6, PEPT upheld the victory of President Bola Tinubu in the 2023 general election.
After the verdict, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi rejected the judgement and headed to the Supreme Court to reclaim their mandates.
