Akin Kuponiyi
A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, southwest Nigeria, has adjourned till 3 August, 2015 for the hearing of two separate suits seeking to quash the coroner’s verdict on the September 12, 2014 collapse of Synagogue Church Of All Nations building.
The two separate suits, numbered FHC/L/CS/1095/15 and FHC/L/CS/1096/15, were filed by the two structural engineers to whom the collapsed six-storey building was contracted, Messrs Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, respectively.
The Lagos coroner, Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, who conducted an inquest into the deaths of the 116 persons in the collapsed building had on 8 July, 2015 indicted Ogundeji and Fatiregun of criminal negligence and recommended them for criminal prosecution by Lagos State.
Pastor T.B. Joshua of Synagogue Church Of All Nations
However, upon the receipt of the coroner’s verdict, the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, last week disclosed the readinesss of the state to implement the coroner’s verdict including filing criminal charges against the church and the two engineers.
Ogundeji and Fatiregun, through their lawyer, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, on Wednesday appeared before Justice Mohammed Idris with an ex-parte application seeking to restrain the police from inviting or arresting them for questioning.
Ojo, while seeking the protection of the court for the engineers, said 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 counsel added that the police had visited the home of Ogundeji, and when they did not see him they arrested and detained his brother-in-law.
In the case of Fatiregun, the police went to his office in Ikeja on 16 July to arrest him but he was not around but voluntarily went to the police station following which he was arrested and detained and asked …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
