A Lagos State High Court in Ikeja has adjourned further proceedings in the charges filed against the Registered Trustees of the Synagogue Church of All Nations and others till December 11, 2015.
The defendants were scheduled to be arraigned today before Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo on 111 counts in connection with the September 12, 2014 collapse of a six-storey guest house belonging to SCOAN wherein 116 persons died.
The scheduled arraignment could, however, not take place as the counsel who appeared for the 1st and 2nd defendants, Mr. Oluseun Abimbola, told the court that not all the defendants had been served with the charges filed before the court.
The Lagos State Ministry of Justice had in a statement on Sunday disclosed the plans to arraign the church’s trustees and the engineers today, noting that the founder of SCOAN, Prophet T.B. Joshua is one of the church’s trustees.
The SCOAN and the two structural engineers, Messrs Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, had on July 8, 2015 been indicted by a Lagos State coroner, Mr. Oyetade Komolafe, who conducted an inquest into the death of the victims of the September 12, 2014 accident.
Komolafe had identified structural defect as the cause of the building collapse, as opposed to the church’s claim that the building was sabotaged.
The coroner had subsequently recommended that the engineers should be prosecuted for criminal negligence while the church should be investigated and prosecuted for building without possessing necessary permit.
The state noted in its statement that the move to finally arraign the SCOAN trustees and the engineers followed the dismissal of a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by the engineers before Justice Ibrahim Buba of a Federal High Court in Lagos.
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