AKIN KUPONIYI

File Photo: The collapsed building in the Synagogue

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has adjourned hearing till September 30 this year, a suit filed by Messrs Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, the structural engineers of the Synagogue Church of All Nations(SCOAN).

The engineers seek to stop the police from arresting or questioning them over the collapse of a 6-storey building within the premises of the church.‬

Hearing of the matter was stalled today due to the inability of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria(COREN), the second respondent in the suit, to file its counter affidavit to the suit.

COREN’s lawyer, L.O.Karim, while addressing the court today, disclosed that he has just been briefed about the matter and that he is yet to file any process in the matter.‬

In view of this, he urged the court to grant him adjournment to enable him put in the necessary processes”,
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Karim’s request was not opposed by both the applicants’ lawyer, Olalekan Ojo and other respondents’ lawyer, Lawal Pedro(SAN).‬

Olalekan Ojo, lawyer of TB Joshua

However,the presiding judge. Mohammed Idris, faulted Karim’s request on the ground that the stipulated period of five days allowed for COREN to file its response to the suit has lapsed.‬

‪”COREN was served by the applicants on the 24th of July, 2015 and their five days to respond has expired. The court cannot wait endlessly for the respondent. There is no reason why the matter should be further adjourned”, Justice Idris said.‬

The judge further said that for the applicants’ lawyer to agree with the request for adjournment, it means there is nothing urgent in the matter again.‬

Consequently he adjourned the matter till September 30, for hearing.‬

A Lagos coroner, Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, who conducted an inquest into the deaths of the 116 persons that perished in the accident, had on July 8, 2015 indicted Ogundeji and Fatiregun of criminal negligence and recommended them for criminal prosecution by Lagos State.‬

The Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, had also declared the readiness of the state to implement the coroner’s verdict including filing criminal charges against the church and the two engineers.‬

Dissatisfied with the Coroner’s verdict, Ogundeji and Fatiregun, through their lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, filed two ex parte applications seeking to restrain the police from inviting or arresting them for questioning.‬

The respondents in the suit are: the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, the Attorney General of Lagos State and the coroner, Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe.‬

Ojo, while seeking the protection of the court for the engineers, disclosed that the police had been after them, claiming that their constitutional rights to dignity and personal liberty, enshrined in sections 34 and 35 of the constitution, were at stake as they could no longer move about freely.‬

The lawyer added that the police had visited the home of Ogundeji, saying that when they did not see him they arrested and detained his brother-in-law As for Fatiregun, Ojo said the police went to his office in Ikeja on July 16 to arrest him but he was not around.‬

He was, however, said to have voluntarily gone to the Police Station following which he was arrested and detained and asked to make written statement regarding the role that his company, Hardrock Engineering Construction Limited, played in the collapsed SCOAN building.
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Ojo said the move to arrest the engineers on July 16 followed the fundamental rights enforcement action that they filed against the respondents on July 15, challenging the coroner’s verdict. He said arresting the engineers in the face of the pending suits would occassion injustice, saying they had raised serious issues awaiting determination by the court.‬

Following Ojo’s argument, the judge ordered all the parties to maintain status quo pending the determination of the applicants’ motions on notice.‬ In the motion on notice accompanying the ex-parte application, the engineers are seeking, among other prayers, a declaration that “the findings and recommendations of the coroner as contained in its verdict dated 8th July, 2015 as they relate to the applicants’ indictment for prosecution for criminal negligence and recommendation for prosecution for criminal negligence by the 1st to 3rd respondents are invalid, null and void and of no effect, whatsoever.”‬

They are also urging the court to declare that the Lagos State Commissioner of Lagos lack the power to act on the coroner’s verdict to investigate or prosecute them.‬

They also sought for a perpetual injunction restraining the Lagos State Attorney General or any officer under his authority from initiating or commencing criminal proceedings against the applicants on the basis of the findings and recommendations of the coroner.‬. The September 12, 2014 tragic incident claimed the lives of 85 South Africans, 22 Nigerians, two Beninoise, one Togolese and six unidentified persons.‬