Appeal Court Denies Atiku’s Claim It Watermarked Tinubu’s Name On CTC Of Presidential Tribunal Judgment

The Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja has uploaded on its website, the certified true copy of the Presidential Election Petition Court’s judgment on respective petitions that challenged the election of President Bola Tinubu.

The appellate court announced via its social media handles on Sunday that Nigerians could download the consolidated judgment which dismissed petitions by Peter Obi of the Labour party, People’s Democratic party’s Atiku Abubakar and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), for lacking in merit.

The announcement comes hours after the Special Assistant on Communications to former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, accused the appellate court of appending ‘President Bola Tinubu Legal Team’ on CTC of the judgment being circulated online.

“PEPC must explain to Nigerians and the world why the header of Tinubu Presidential Legal Team was on CTC copies of its judgment.

“After causing needless delay in availing the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and his legal team Certified True Copies of its judgment, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) must explain to Nigerians and the world ambiguities around why copies of the judgment bears the header of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team.

“It is not our intention to stir up controversy on the matter, but it is very important that the PEPC should tell Nigerians why they chose to affix the header of the respondents on the CTC copy of their judgment, whereas the copies that went to the petitioners did not have the same,” Shaibu said in a statement.

Shaibu further claimed, that “we have it on good authority that when the PEPC was informed that the CTC copies of the judgment given to the Respondents was already circulating in the public domain with the header of TPLT on it, a further delay was necessitated by the need for it to undertake a laundry of the documents by removing the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team header before handing over same to the lawyers of Atiku.”

But reacting, the coordinator of President Tinubu’s Legal Team, Babatunde Ogala SAN, claimed that the team had scanned and watermarked the CTC with the inscription – ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team’ after collecting their copy.

He maintained that reading any other meaning to the document allegedly amounts to mischief.

“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 the 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,” Ogala said.

THE WHISTLER reports that the CTC as uploaded to the Court of Appeal website is titled “In the Presidential Election Petition Court holden at Abuja”

An official of the court who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the claims, told THE WHISTLER on Sunday that the CTC of the judgment with watermark or header that reads ‘Tinubu Legal Team’ was inscribed by Tinubu’s lawyers, adding it is what lawyers usually do when they get CTCs.

“There was no such header on the CTC of the judgment that was given to lawyers. Tinubu’s legal team inscribed the header on the CTC given to them,” said the source.