1st Issue:It is the contention on behalf of the appellant that the charge of rape against him was never proved and hence the complaint that the learned Justices of the Court of Appeal were clearly wrong when they held at page 139 of the record thus:-"I hold that the charge of rape was proved beyond reasonable doubt against the appellant" It is the counsel's submission that to prove the offence of rape, there must be evidence of penetration as an essential element, and which must be linked to the accused, that is the appellant this case; that in the instant appeal, the evidence offered by the prosecution in proof of penetration was those by the PW1 and PW5 which totality, counsel argues could have pointed to rape, but that it did not link the appellant to raping of the PW1. Furthermore, counsel submits as wrong for the Court to have relied on those pieces of evidence as proof of penetration by mere insertion of penis into PW1's vagina. Counsel cites the authority in the case of Okoyomon V. The State (1973) 1 SC 21, (1973) 1 NMLR 392, 296 297 per Elias CJN, that insertion of penis into vagina is not proof of penetration. He submits therefore that PW5's evidence ought to have linked the appellant to the alleged breaking of the hymen; that the only credible means of linking the appellant with the partial penetration would have been through the whitish discharge which opportunity had been lost.

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