Synagogue Church Trustees, Engineers to be arraigned on Monday over building

The trustees of TB Joshua’s Church of all Nations (SCOAN) were on Monday reportedly set to be charged over a building collapse that killed at least 116 people on September 12, 2014.

This was disclosed in a statement by the Public Relations Officer of the State Ministry of Justice, Mrs Bola Akingbade.

The Monday arraignment of the five defendants was, however, adjourned till December 11 by Justice Lawal-Akapo of a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, due to the state’s inability to serve three of the defendants.

After concluding their investigations, the Coroner indicted the engineers Oladele Ogundeji, and Akinbela Fatiregun recommending that further investigations be conducted against them with a view to prosecuting them for criminal negligence.

Two engineers who constructed the collapsed building had approached the court seeking for an order restraining the police from inviting, arresting or prosecuting them over the victims’ death which was dismissed by the court.

The engineers had filed the suits following the Coroner’s verdict, which attributed the building collapse to structural defect, describing the Judge’s Verdict as “unreasonable, one-sided and biased”.

The Attorney General of Lagos State, Adeniyi Kazeem, who led the state’s legal team, said the two defendants couldn’t be served as their addresses were invalid.

The presiding judge ordered that proper court notices be served to the engineers within 72 hours, and advised their counsel to inform them to take the court proceedings seriously as their trial is of a criminal case. “The Federal High Court can not tamper with the Coroner’s Law, which is a constitutional enactment of the Lagos State House of Assembly”.

On Sunday, the Lagos state government announced that the affected persons will be arraigned in court.