The Peoples Democratic Party—PDP, has described the explanation offered by President Bola Tinubu’s legal team following the watermark that appeared on the judgement document handed over to them my the Appeal Court as “self-indicting”.
This is coming after the Coordinator, TPLT, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), in a statement on Saturday while making clarifications over the watermark that appeared on the judgement document handed over to their legal team, stated that after the delivery of judgment in the three election petitions by the Court of Appeal, the Court directed its registry to make physical copies of the document available the following day.
He said they applied for a Certified True Copy of the said judgment and paid the prescribed fee and lawyers for PDP were present at the registry at the same time to collect the same judgment.
Ogala further noted that on collecting their own copy, they immediately scanned and water-marked with the inscription – “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team ‘TPLT’” before circulating the scanned soft copies to the lawyers in their team.
But the Peoples Democratic Party—PDP, in a statement made by its spokesman, Mr Debo Ologunagba seems not to buy the excuse given by Ogala.
According to Ologunagba, 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.
While urging the ruling party to come clean over the issue, Ologunagba noted that the explanation given by the APC amounts to desperate attempt to dispel public scrutiny and ward off the possibility of more revelations regarding the issue.
Part of the statement reads, “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) judgement 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 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 explains 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 devise 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.”