In all criminal trials, the burden is on the prosecution to establish or prove essential ingredients of the offence which an accused person is charged with beyond reasonable doubt, and the prosecution will readily achieve this if it can assemble credible, cogent and believable or reliable evidence against the accused person. Thus, proof beyond reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond all shadow of doubt. It simply means establishing the guilt of the accused person with compelling and convincing evidence. It does not mean proof beyond all shadow of doubt.
In the state V. Onyeukwu (2004) 14 NWLR (pl 813) 340. The court held that the expression beyond reasonable doubt is a concept founded on reason and rational and critical examination of a state of facts and law rather than in fancied whimsical or capricious and speculative doubt.
It is therefore, to be noted that for a prosecution to prove its case, all it needs to do is to establish the suit of the accused person by credible cogent, reliable and believable evidence (which is reasonable). It does not have to prove its case beyond all doubt. For the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, for instance in a culpable homicide case punishable with death under section 221 of the penal code, the following ingredients must be established;
a) That the deceased has died,
b) That the death of the deceased was caused by the act of the accused and ,
c) That the act of the accused which caused the death of the deceased was intentional with knowledge that death or grievous bodily harm was its probable consequence: see Ogedengbe V. state (2014) 12 NWLR (Pr 1421) 338.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt simply put is establishing the guilt of the accused person with compelling and convincing evidence. In Ojuri Anjola V. state (CA/AK/39/11) in that case the mother of the deceased person testified that she saw the appellant stabling the deceased, Sunday Ayodele with a knife. The deceased fell down and he later died in the hospital. The prosecutor in that case did not establish the ingredients of the offence of murder and could not establish the guilt of the accused person beyond reasonable doubt, establishing the cause of death alone is not enough which was not even established in the instant case. Proof beyond reasonable doubt means proof of an offence with the certainly of the criminal law. That certainly is that the offence has been committed and that no other person but the accused person on the evidence conclusively established these facts. The case is said to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Nkechi Bright – Ewere