Keyword: A controversy has arisen over a copy of the ruling of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPC) that is circulating online and whose pages have the inscription in the header President Bola TinubuThe legal team.
Phrank Shaibu, media assistant to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, raised questions on the matter in a statement on Saturday.
Shaibu said the court “must explain to Nigerians and the world why the head of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team was in the copies of his CTC judgment”, fueling the widespread perception among supporters of opposition candidates of that the court was biased in favor of President Bola Tinubu. .
Although, without providing any evidence, Shaibu also echoed speculation that spread online for weeks that some legal minds within the All Progressives Congress (APC) were contributing to the drafting of the judgment.
But Babatunde Ogala, coordinator of the Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLP), which brings together the group of lawyers who defended Tinubu’s electoral victory in the PEPC, has dismissed widespread concerns about the controversial copy of the judgment as unfounded insinuations.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. [PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter handle of Tinubu]A certified true copy of the judgment with the legend “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team”, appearing in the upper right corner of its 798 pages, appeared online on Saturday, days after the court handed down the verdict in a procedure of more of 12 hours. On Wednesday.
The five-member court unanimously dismissed the three petitions challenging Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 elections in its judgment on Wednesday.
Two of the petitions were presented by the main opposition candidates: Atiku and Peter of the Labor Party.
Both rejected the sentence and promised to challenge it before the Supreme Court.
“After causing unnecessary delay in obtaining certified true copies of his judgment by the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his legal team, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPC) must explain to Nigerians and the world ambiguities as to why copies of the judgment are headed by Tinubu’s presidential legal team,” Shaibu wrote on Saturday.
Shaibu’s consultations
Shaibu questioned why Tinubu’s legal team was able to receive a copy of the judgment before Atiku’s team, which first requested it in open court immediately after the five-judge panel finished reading the verdict on Wednesday night.
“The curiosity is further confused by the fact that the main lawyer for Atiku and the PDP had requested in public hearing to expressly receive the sentence, to which Judge Haruna Tsammani accepted and promised to make the document available the next day. , which was Thursday.
“Nigerians want to know why the PEPC confers special privileges on Tinubu’s legal team by granting them first custody of copies of the PEPC judgment even though it was more urgent for the petitioners who needed the document to file an appeal before Supreme Court within 14 days, including weekends,” he wrote.
He added that it was necessary for Atiku and the PDP’s lead lawyer to write a second letter to the court, following an earlier one sent on Thursday, before the petitioners could receive the sentence on Friday, hours after, he said, the Tinubu already had custody of it.
He suggested, although without providing evidence, that the delay in delivering the judgment to the petitioners could only have been caused by the need to remove the heading “Tinubu Presidential Legal Team” in the copy allegedly issued earlier by the court and that it had already was circulating in the public.
“Furthermore, we have it on good authority that when the PEPC was informed that copies of the judgment handed down to the defendants by the CTC were already circulating in the public domain under the heading TPLT, further delay was necessary due to the need for it to conduct a laundering documents by removing the header of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team before handing it over to Atiku’s lawyers.
“While the legal team of the PDP and Atiku have the legal 14 days to prepare their appeal to the Supreme Court, the PEPC had erased 2 days of those 14 days, no thanks to the PEPC whose president, Judge Tsamani, had promised to put provision “The CTC sent a copy of the judgment to Atiku a day after the judgment was issued, which should have been Thursday,” Mr Shaibu said.
He suggested that “the events that unfolded after the court ruling raise suspicions as to whether or not the Tinubu Legal Team provided administrative services to the PEPC.”
“Otherwise, how and when did the ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team’ sneak into a document that was supposed to be the official document of the Nigerian Court of Appeal,” Mr. Shaibu added.
He also suggested, although no evidence was provided, that the heading by Tinubu’s legal team in the viral copy of the judgment meant that, “barring valid explanation, Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team is the author of the document.”
The allegation that an outsider wrote the judgment for the panel of judges emerged before the judgment was handed down on Wednesday, a reflection of the deep perception of the dominant influence of the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government in the court and the judiciary.
Speculation was rife on the Internet in the weeks leading up to the verdict, but no supporting evidence was provided.
Former Minister of Public Works and former Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, who is a prominent advocate, had to deny online speculation that he was drafting the panel’s verdict, which was yet to be pronounced.
Shaibu again questioned on Saturday whether the controversial copy of the judgment being circulated implied that “special privileges are deemed to be granted to Tinubu’s legal team”.
He also recalled that during the issuance of its sentence, “the PEPC had spoken about the petition on which it spoke in humiliating and denigrating language, as if it were a crime to bring a case of electoral banditry to court.”
“The PEPC must, on its honour, if it still has any, clarify why the court decided to put the Tinubu Legal Team heading on a CTC copy of its sentencing document, while the only emblem that should have been on the document is the seal of the Nigerian Court of Appeal,” he said.
He added that “Nigerians and the world are eagerly awaiting answers” to the points he had raised as the legal challenge moves to the Supreme Court.
Shaibu, who doubled down on the accusation of widespread fraud during the disputed elections, which he referred to as “the February 25 electoral banditry”, said Atiku decided to appeal to the Supreme Court against Wednesday’s verdict as “our last ditch effort.” . to save our country and deepen our democracy.”
“In the context of the annihilation of almost all the institutions of the State, including the Independent National Electoral Commission, which dragged us into this quagmire, our intention is to ensure that the judiciary, the last hope of the common man, does not come to ruin . dogs,” he said.
Tinubu’s legal team reacts
Meanwhile, Ogala, a SAN, who coordinates Tinubu’s legal team, described the brand as a “harmless watermark” in a statement on Saturday. Shaibu insisted that the inscription was not a watermark but a heading indicating the authorship of the document by the bearer.
Ogala said his team requested and paid the necessary fees to obtain a certified true copy of the judgment, as did the petitioners.
He said that his team representatives were at the court registry in Abuja at the same time as the PDP lawyers to receive the certified true copy of the judgment and that contrary to Mr. Shaibu’s claim, the PDP lawyers The opposition received the first copy published by the court.
He maintained that the copies of the ruling released by the court secretariat did not have the registration of his team.
“Upon collecting our own copy, we immediately scanned it and watermarked it with the inscription: ‘Tinubu Presidential Legal Team (TPLT)’ before distributing the scanned digital copies to the lawyers in our team.
“The certified copies issued to us and other parties in the registration requests do not contain such inscription and any suggestion to the contrary is false.
“The petitioners’ lawyers will also appreciate the fact that the insinuations circulating in some quarters are false, cruel, unfair and unfortunate, as they have the same certified copies of the judgment that we have,” he said.
He also described the questions raised from the copy of the ruling as “naughty” so it was necessary for him to issue a clarification.