
Senior Pastor of the church, Prophet T.B Joshua is one of the trustees.
In a statement by the Deputy Director, Public Affairs of
the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Bola Akingbade said, the trustees
will be arraigned before Justice Lawal Akapo alongside the engineers
that constructed the collapsed building.
t would be recalled that Justice Ibrahim Buba of the
Federal High Court in Lagos had dismissed the fundamental human rights
enforcement suits filed by the engineers who constructed the collapsed
six-story building to stop their planned trial.
The engineers – Mr. Oladele Ogundeji and Mr. Akinbela
Fatiregun, had filed two separate suits before Justice Buba seeking an
order restraining the police from inviting, arresting or prosecuting
them over the victims’ death.
The Lagos State Government, had set up a Coroner Inquest
to unravel what went wrong, and via a verdict delivered on August 7,
2015 by Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe, the Coroner had indicted the
engineers and recommended them for investigation and prosecution for
criminal negligence.
The engineers had filed the suits following the Coroner’s verdict, which attributed the building collapse to structural defect.
The engineers had specifically rejected the Coroner’s verdict, describing it as “unreasonable, one-sided and biased.”
But Justice Buba, in his ruling on the defendants’
preliminary objection, held that the engineers “had not made out a case
of infringement on their fundamental rights even on the merit of the
application,” and dismissed their applications.
The judge, who noted that the Coroner Law was an
enactment of the Lagos State House of Assembly, which is
constitutionally empowered to make laws in the state, said “the Federal
High Court could not dabble into the affairs of the state and start
dishing out injunctive orders.”
On the prayer by the engineers asking for an order of
perpetual injunction restraining the Lagos State Attorney General or any
officer under his authority from initiating or commencing criminal
proceedings against them based on the verdict of the Coroner, Justice
Buba held that such request was ungrantable in the circumstance of the
case under review.
The judge added: “The Coroner’s inquest is not a court of
law; it does not find anybody guilty, it only recommends. The Federal
High Court can not tamper with the Coroner Law, which is a
Constitutional enactment of the Lagos State House of Assembly.”
Shortly after the verdict, the State Government had
assured that the affected persons would be swiftly charge to court. The
assurance was contained in a statement issued by the Attorney General
and Commissioner for Justice in the State, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem.
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