not the accused persons had knowledge of its unlawfulness. It is of course necessary to constitute the offence that there should be a criminal purpose common to all the conspirators. (See R. v. Clayton (1943) 33 Cr. App.R 113)" The charge of conspiracy reads: That you Gabriel Onyebuchi Obi and Ugwu Geoffery males, adults, sometime in October 2010 at Lagos within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, conspired with others at Large to commit an unlawful act, to wit, to import 165 Kilogrammes of Cocaine from Bolivia, South America using container no. MSCU 1287231 and you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 14(b) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act Cap N30 Laws of the Federation 2004; For the prosecution to secure a conviction on the above count of conspiracy, it must establish the following: 1. That the appellant and Ugwu Geoffrey had an agreement or a meeting of their minds to import cocaine into Nigeria from Bolivia using container MSCU 1287231; 2. In the absence of the overt act of the meeting of their minds, there must be evidence of acts on the part of the appellant and Ugwu Geoffrey from which the inference can be drawn that there was indeed a meeting of their minds to commit the offence charged. From the evidence adduced, there was no overt act establishing the agreement/ That, of course is not surprising as any such agreement would have been in complete secrecy. The prosecution consequently relied on circumstantial evidence and inference from the under-listed proved acts: (i) Evidence that the Appellant handed over the bill of lading in respect of container no. MSCU 1287231 which contained the 165 Kilogrammes of Cocaine to Ibrahim Maidurumi — PW10 and also paid a deposit of N300, 000 to enable him clear the container containing 165 Kilogrammes of Cocaine. (ii) Evidence that Ibrahim Maidurumi handed the bill of Lading to Audu Ismail, who in turn gave it to Ugwu Geoffery (the 2nd Accused). (iii) Evidence that the 2nd accused then forged some documents and made payments to Ellisbonar Nigeria Ltd to get a release letter to clear the container from the Tin can Island Port. Do the above circumstantial pieces of evidence lead to one and only one conclusion - that the appellant and the 2nd accused entered into an agreement or had a meeting of their minds to import cocaine into Nigeria from Bolivia? The answer in my