Co-ordinator Of APC Legal Team Denies Rumour Of Manipulation Of Judgement Of PEPT

The lead Co-ordinator of the legal team of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Mr Babatunde Ogala, SAN OFR, has denied the insinuations in some quarters that the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) was manipulated to favour the president.

Ogala said in his reaction to the allegation through a statement that he personally signed that “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 same available on September 7, 2023.”

The Senior Advocate said that accordingly, the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team applied for a certified true copy of the said judgment and paid the prescribed fee, adding that lawyers for the Peoples Democratic Party (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,” he said.

He stated that counsels 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.”