Synagogue: New judge to hear indicted engineers’ suit

•File photo of the collpased building

Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, has re-assigned a suit filed by two structural engineers indicted in the six-storey Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) building collapse to Justice Ibrahim Buba.

The engineers are praying the court to quash a District Coroner’s verdict which found them culpable after an inquest.

Justice Buba had last year adjudicated a suit which sought to stop the inquest.

A Lagos-based lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje, who filed the suit on the church’s behalf, had contended that the inquest had a pre-determined objective since it was constituted by the state government whose agents made indicting statements against Synagogue and its founder, T.B. Joshua, prior to the inquest.

But Justice Buba, in a judgment delivered last November 17, held that the coroner was a fact-finding body rather than a court. According to him, it was in the public’s interest to know the circumstances surrounding the death of several worshippers in the mishap.

After the coroner indicted the engineers, namely Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, the duo filed two suits against the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), the state’s Attorney-General and the District Coroner, Mr. Oyetade Komolafe, a magistrate.

The cases were filed during the court’s annual long vacation and were first heard by Justice Mohammed Idris who sat during the break period.

Lagos State Government had filed a preliminary objection to the suit while it was still before Justice Idris.

The engineers are challenging the July 8 coroner’s verdict on the death of 116 persons in the building collapse.

Ogundeji and Fatiregun were accused of criminal negligence regarding the building’s construction. The coroner recommended them for criminal prosecution.

Justice Idris had adjourned to Wednesday for further hearing, but the cases instead came up before Justice Buba.

The Nation