participated in the unlawful sexual intercourse. These ingredients may be established by either direct or circumstantial evidence or upon the confession of the accused person himself (AHMED v. THE NIGERIAN ARMY (2011)1 NWLR 89). It is trite law that each and every essential ingredients of the offence charged must proved beyond reasonable doubt by the prosecution before a meaningful conviction can be secured (MOMODOU JALLOW v. COMMISSIONER OF POLICE (1960- 1993) GLR 39 and WOOLMINGTON V DPP (1953) A.C. 462). And it must be emphasized that an accused person bears no duty of proving his innocence since he is presumed innocent until proved guilty or until he pleads guilty. In this case, there was no eye witness account of the alleged rape, thus eliminating all the prospects of any direct evidence in support of the indictment. The prosecution therefore relied heavily on circumstantial evidence and the confession statements of the accused in prove of the offence. Although I agree that circumstantial evidence is very often the best evidence, in that it is evidence of surrounding circumstances which by undersigned coincidence is capable of proving a proposition with the accuracy of mathematics, I also agree that circumstantial evidence must be narrowly examined so that a possibility of fabrication to cast suspicions on an innocent person is ruled out. To be sufficient to support a conviction, circumstantial evidence must be complete and unequivocal. It must be compelling and must lead to the irresistible conclusion that the accused and no one else is the culprit. The facts must therefore be incompatible with the innocence of the accused and incompatible of explanation upon any other reasonable 3