of the aisle. I therefore hold that the offence of forgery under count 6 has been
established beyond reasonable doubt against the defendant.
The final Count 7 equally flows from count 6. Here the defendant is charged with
fraudulently using the acceptance of offer of grant of Right of Occupancy, Exhibit
P3 which he gave to the norminal complainant as genuine and signed by Mr.
Sunday Ameh Ako and which he knew to be forged.
In our consideration of issue 6, we had dealt comprehensively with the fact that
PW3 said he never signed the said acceptance letter Exhibit P3 and that in fact he
had never seen the document. We had also equally referred to the genuine
acceptance of offer of grant that he signed accepting the offer of plot 1528 to him.
As a logical corollary and flowing from the confluence of unchallenged facts and
or evidence, I hold that Exhibit P3 was dishonestly given to PW2 by defendant
knowing it to be forged with the intention of causing wrongful gain to defendant
and loss to the norminal complainant. This count was therefore established or
proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution. I therefore find the defendant
guilty of count 7 of the charge.
I had earlier at the beginning stated the burden of proof on the prosecution. I had
similarly referred to the provision which states that if the prosecution proves the
commission of a crime beyond reasonable doubt, the burden of proving reasonable
doubt is shifted to the Accused Person. What this simply means is that where the
prosecution establishes or crosses the threshold of proving its case beyond
reasonable doubt, the onus then shifted to the defence to adduce evidence capable
of creating some reasonable doubt in the mind of the trial judge.
The point must be emphasised to avoid any disposition to confusion that the
primary onus of establishing the guilt of the Accused Persons still remains with the
prosecution and this does not shift. What does shift is the secondary onus or the
onus of adducing some evidence which may render the prosecutions’ case
impropable and therefore unlikely to be true and thereby create a reasonable doubt.
See Mufutau Bakare V. The State (supra) 1 at 32, 33-34.
The defendant has here not put in any evidence or facts in rebuttal or elicited facts
in evidence susceptible to grant of innocence in which case doubt would have been
created to enure in his favour.
On the basis of the foregoing, I have come to the conclusion that the prosecution
has crossed the legal threshold and proved beyond reasonable doubt all the
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