By Ken Afor
Barely one week after the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) delivered its 12-hour judgment on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, the Court of Appeal has made public the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment.
The Court on its official website on Sunday published the 794-page judgment.
The court announced the upload of the consolidated judgment in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter on Sunday.
“CERTIFIED TRUE COPY OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PETITION COURT 2023 JUDGEMENT. Having considered and decided that the three Petitions Nos. CA/PEPC/03/2023; CA/PEPC/04/2023 and CA/PEPC/05/2023 are… Follow the link below for the CTC of the Judgment”, the court wrote on its official X account, formerly known as Twitter.
This comes after the said copy of the judgment was heavily criticised by members of the opposition party – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) over the weekend.
This news website had earlier reported how the release of the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment received mixed reactions from Nigerians particularly the PDP and the LP.
On Friday, a copy of the judgment which went viral on social media had the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s legal team APC on it. This generated reaction from the PDP questioning why the copy should bear the legal team’s name on it.
Also, the LP through its National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh, called on the PEPT to explain to Nigerians what warranted such error.
Ifoh said, “Consequent upon the revelation that Certified True Copies (CTC) of the recent judgement by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) had an imprint: ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team’ (TPLT) as its header, Nigerians are curious about such happenstance that has inevitably generated storm and controversy.
According to LP, “We of the Labour Party place it on record that the counsel who collected the judgement on behalf of our party and our candidate did so long after a representative of Tinubu Legal Team.”
“On the PEPC and APC to come clean on the CTC imprint and disclose whose imprimatur is inscribed on the entire judgement. Nigerians deserve the right to know and are demanding urgent answers.”
But in a swift reaction, Babatunde Ogala (SAN), a member of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team, explained how the said copy had the team’s name on it.
Ogala stated 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.
“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.
“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.”
