tendered relates to one Mohammed Umar Yahaya and that
no proper foundation was led in the evidence as to who
Mohammed Umar Yahaya is and finally submitted that while
the document sought to be tendered relates to a house, the
charge relates to blocks of houses. He therefore submitted
that on the basis of the above and the lack of proper
foundation, the document is not relevant to this case and urge
the court to reject it because even if a document is relevant it
can also be inadmissible in law.
In his response, the prosecuting counsel submitted that the
court can infer from the evidence of the witness that since he
informed this court that the original is lost, it means all efforts
to trace the original proved abortive. He submitted that even
though the document sought to be tendered carries the name
of Mohammed Umaru Yahaya and not Umar Yahaya, there
is substantial compliance with the law to justify the
admissibility of the document sought to be tendered. He
submitted that the defence counsel is only being technical and
has gone to issue of weight to be attached to the document
when we are dealing with issue of admissibility. He finally
urge the court to discountenanced on the submission of the
learned defence counsel and admit the document sought to
tendered in evidence.
From the evidence of PW2, the witness testified to the fact
that he sold his house to one Umar Yahaya which he
inherited from his elder brother and that the original is lost.
He said he had already photocopied the original and kept
even before the original was lost. From the summary of the
evidence of PW2, what he sold was a house to one Umar
Yahaya, but the document sought to be tendered shows that
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