The Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT) has explained why the watermarks on the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the ruling by the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in circulation on social media are there.
According to Gistlover, there had been rumors that the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team watermarks could have tainted the tribunal decision to favor President Bola Tinubu.
Babatunde Ogala (SAN), the coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, refuted these allegations in a statement on Saturday.
He asserts that the verdict was not tainted and that the team only added watermarks after receiving their own copies of the combined verdict from the Court of Appeal.
Ogala continued by saying that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) attorneys were present at the court registry when they picked up the clean copies of the tribunal ruling and that they were even the first to retrieve copies of the ruling from the court registry.
The attorney claimed those implying a compromise are merely playing pranks because the clean copies were only watermarked with the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team seal after they had been collected.
According to him, “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 is 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.
“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.”
