THE Legal team of President Bola Tinubu has come under fire from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for watermarking its copy of the Certified True Copy of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) judgment.
The opposition PDP, in a statement released through its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, on Monday, made its displeasure known.
This comes after the Coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), had, on Saturday, revealed that the team watermarked their copy of the tribunal judgment after obtaining the judgment copy from the Court of Appeal before issuing the scanned copies to the team members.
It is, therefore, the PDP’s submission that the APC’s watermarking the copy of the judgment gives rise to the insinuation that the judgment of the tribunal was manipulated by the ruling party to favour it.
“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has meticulously examined the scandalous inscription of the Header of Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT) on the Certified True Copies (CTC) of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) judgment currently in circulation.
“The knee-jerk admission by the Tinubu Legal Team that it “scanned and watermarked” its copy of the judgment with the inscription, “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT’” is self-indicting and lends credence to widespread public insinuation of pre-determined manipulation by the APC.
“The rush by the TPLT in admitting that it imprinted on the CTC of the judgment smacks of a desperate attempt to dispel public scrutiny and ward off the possibility of more revelations regarding the issue.”
“The PDP and indeed the majority of Nigerians are not satisfied with the claims by the Tinubu Legal Team. This is especially as further examination and expert analysis show that the documents are not scanned and that the TPLT inscriptions are not watermarks but computer default header which usually originates from an author of a document.
“The PDP demands that the Tinubu Legal Team should explain how what obviously is a default header on its computer system should be accepted as a watermark.
“The Tinubu Legal Team should also disclose to Nigerians what specific time on Friday, September 8, 2023 they received their CTC; what time specifically was the ‘watermark’ imprinted of the document, the identity of the electronic device with which the ‘watermark’ was made as well as the PDF used in the said watermarking process for independent analysis.
“The PDP demands that the All Progressives Congress (APC) should come clean on the issue, especially given its notoriety for manipulations,” the statement from the PDP read.
