It’s now two months since the Synagogue church building crashed and one month since the coroner’s inquest started. So how’s the inquest coming along?The inquest has been happening at the Lagos High Court in Ikeja. It’s an inquiry into the manner and cause of the building crash, and it’s headed by Alexander Komolafe. The purpose of the inquest is to find out the facts and establish the truth about this accident.
There’s been some controversy about the accident since it happened,
and many people have clamoured for the government to take strong action
concerning the matter in order to bring justice and avert a recurrence.
This is the background of the inquest.
Here are the highlights of the case.
October 13
The case opens on a promising note. The coroner gets straight to
business and tries to get everyone to understand the purpose of the
inquest. “We’re not here to prosecute anyone,” he says. “I don’t want us
to see each other as opponents. We’re all in this together. It’s not a
win or lose thing. We’re here to find the cause of this incident so that
it will not happen again. That’s why we’re here.”
October 16
The coroner and others visit the church to observe the collapse site.
He tells the church to give the Lagos state forensic team a list of the
people who were at the building before it collapsed in order to help
the doctors identify the victims.
October 24
The Lagos fire brigade chief, Adebayo Musiliu, tells the court that
the building didn’t collapse because of an explosion. “The collapsed
building did not depict any sign of explosion or implosion,” he says.
“All the bodies recovered were whole and not dismembered or burnt. There
were no scattered bricks. The floors and pillars were also not
shattered.”
The coroner summons TB Joshua to appear on November 5, despite objection from the church’s lawyers.
October 28
Professor John Obafunwa, Lagos chief forensic pathologist, testifies
about the autopsy they’ve done. He says their autopsy showed that the
dead victims were crushed to death and it showed no signs that the
victims died in an explosion. He also says his team has begun DNA and
dental analysis of the bodies in order to identify the people.
Ibrahim Farinloye, National Emergency Management Agency chief, tells
the court that the church people harassed him and his men and impeded
them from working when they got to the place on the first day. But the
church’s lawyers question his narrative.
They also try to establish that the NEMA team didn’t arrive quickly
enough and with all the needed equipment, and that the church had begun
the rescue work before NEMA arrived.
October 29
Red Cross testifies in favour of Synagogue, saying the church’s response was “good”.
Spokesman Ige Oladimeji tells the court that the church people didn’t
bar him and his team from entering the collapse site. He says they were
cooperative.
“When we got to the place, we met NEMA and LASEMA there, but we
didn’t see them carrying out any rescue operations. Some volunteers,
presumably from the church, were already at the site evacuating victims
and moving them to the hospital in ambulances. The church provided those
ambulances. So what we did was to work with them in the rescue
operations.”
October 30
The Lagos commissioner for physical planning and urban development,
Toyin Ayinde, admits the collapsed building lacked certain government
approval, but he says even if it did, it could still have collapsed.
“That a building does not have a plan is not a determinant of
structural defects because there are buildings with official approval,
but have collapsed. Yes, a building in Jakande Estate, Isolo recently
collapsed due to structural defects even though it had a duly approved
plan.”
November 5
The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency boss, Dr. Femi
Osanyintolu, testifies that he and his men were fully equipped on the
ground to rescue victims, but the church people impeded them. He says
the police let this happen and didn’t stop the “obstructers”.
TB Joshua is expected in court today but he doesn’t turn up. His
lawyers say there was a problem with the summon. With a stern caution,
the coroner sets a new date to November 20.
November 6
Synagogue’s lawyers play a video clip said to have been captured by the church’s CCTV
camera
. The clip shows a scene where the church people cooperate calmly with LASEMA. The LASEMA boss challenges the clip.
The Ikotun police chief CSP Haruna Alaba tells the court that the
police arrived at the scene on time. He says he and his men did well to
control traffic and manage the crowd that trooped to the scene, so that
emergency responders could do their job. He also testifies that the
church’s volunteers responded well to rescue survivors before emergency
people arrived.
The court sittings have been quite amicable so far with some dose of
humour. For instance, a witness kept on telling the lawyer questioning
him to let him comment on what happened on the third day of the
accident. “I want to go to the third day, my lord.”
Later, someone at the back of the court stood up to leave the room.
He told his friend, “I’ll be back soon. I want to go to the third day.”
The case will continue on November 19.
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