Social media has been abuzz with a circulating screenshot of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s judgment, which features the watermark of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team. Those circulating it claim the judgment was drafted by Tinubu’s lawyers, and handed over to the judges to read.
To investigate the veracity of this claim, The Explainer fact checker conducted an analysis of the contents of the circulating judgment, while comparing it with the judgement on the website of the Court of Appeal.
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Although the Coordinator of Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team (TPLT), Babatunde Ogala has refuted this claim, social media users have insisted that Tinubu lawyers and the legal of APC wrote the judgement.
According to the statement, the TPLT watermarked their copy of the judgment obtained from the Court of Appeal and shared scanned copies with team members.
The TPLT coordinator clarified that both Tinubu’s Presidential Legal Team and the lawyers representing the PDP were present at the registry to collect certified copies of the judgment. The PDP representative even collected the first available copy.
Seeing that no explanation from any partisan actor will suffice, The Explainer accessed the official website of the Court of Appeal and obtained an e-copy of the judgment. The analysis of this copy revealed no watermarks of any party on the header or footer. The web version put on display by the Court of Appeal has no watermark.
Based on the copy of the judgment seen on the website of the Court of Appeal, it is apparent that the claim that Tinubu and APC’s lawyers wrote the Tribunal judgment and handed it over to the judges to deliver, is misleading.
The official e-copy of the judgment obtained from the Appeal Court’s website does not bear any watermarks.
