real evidence that ought to be produced in evidence to give the court first hand opportunity of examining the alleged forgery, but this was not done and this is fatal to the case of the prosecution. Again, the submission of B. L. Tebira, Esq. of counsel for the accused person that Exhibits P4B upon which the prosecution has heavily relied did not say the land documents attached to Exhibit P1 are forged resonates with me. There is nothing in Exhibit P4B which suggests even remotely that the land documents were not duly issued and signed by Mr. Lugard Edegbe and Ishaq M. B. as shown on the photocopies of the land documents annexed to Exhibit P1. Exhibits P4B merely stated that "… from our records, plot numbers mentioned above are NOT within the approved/authorised AMAC layouts and in the list of allotees"; that "in the light of the above, the attached allocation letters cannot be genuine"; and that "…this information is based on the records available to this office". Quite clearly therefore, Exhibits P4B ought not to constitute the sole basis for alleging forgery without more. In respect of Counts 3 and 5, since the prosecution has not established by credible evidence that the land documents the accused gave to PW4 who in turn passed them to PW2 to sell are forged, it goes without saying that the counts alleging that the accused person 'fraudulently used forged documents as genuine' have equally not been made out. The documents must first be shown to be forged before any charge of fraudulently using or projecting them as genuine can arise. From whatever perspective this matter is looked at, the conclusion is inescapable that the prosecution has not succeeded in establishing the charge beyond reasonable doubt as dictated by s. 135(1) and (2) of the Evidence Act, 2011. The only course open to the court in the 27 | P a g e