Coroner’s verdict unreasonable — Synagogue

By Evelyn Usman, Abdulwahab Abdulah & Bartholomew Madukwe

Lagos—Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, yesterday, described as ‘unreasonable and biased’ the Coroner’s Inquest verdict, which held that  structural failure due to combination of designs and detailed errors were the cause of last year’s collapse which claimed the lives of 116 worshipers.

The Lagos Coroner’s Inquest into the collapse of a six-storey building belonging to SCOAN indicted the church for ‘criminal negligence’ and recommended that it be prosecuted.

In a statement signed by the Church’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, SCOAN argued that the coroner  did not take into account the evidence that the church had started processing the relevant building approval before the incident.

The statement made available to Vanguard, stated that; ‘’As a matter of fact, the amount payable for the processing had already been assessed by the appropriate government agencies. There was no finding that the church engaged the services of unqualified or incompetent professionals for the construction of the building.

“There was no finding that the church procured substandard materials for the construction of the building, as confirmed by officials of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, who gave evidence at the coroner and certified the materials used were all approved and of good quality.

“The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations, SCOAN, therefore rejects the verdict of the coroner on the grounds that it is unreasonable, one-sided and biased. The church maintains its stand that the incident was as a result of sabotage. There was no finding that connected the incident with the lack of a building permit,” the statement added.

SCOAN further said the recommendation for the investigation and prosecution of the contractors and structural engineers used by the church for criminal negligence was premature, pointing out that it gives the impression that the coroner has found the church guilty when in actual fact , a coroner is not allowed in law to make any finding of civil or criminal liability against anybody.

“The church disagrees with the finding that the incident was due to structural failure. The church considers it strange that the coroner did not refer in its verdict to the evidence of the registered structural engineer and contractor used by the church nor did it evaluate the conflicting evidence given by civil and structural engineers as to whether or not the incident was as a result of structural failure. It was a one-sided verdict which left many issues unaddressed and questions unanswered,” SCOAN said.

The church also asserted that the verdict of the coroner  did not refer to the CCTV footage which showed the 6-storey building falling in less than four seconds, a manner it said was consistent with controlled or externally induced demolition, “nor did it refer to the interim report and investigation by the Police, which pointed to sabotage by external forces.”