Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo of the Lagos High Court in Ikeja yesterday dismissed an application seeking to stay further proceedings in the trial of the Registered Trustees of the Synagogue Church of All Nations and the two engineers who constructed the collapsed building belonging to the church.
Justice Lawal-Akapo threw out the application followed the withdrawal of same by the defendants because of a recent decision of the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, which dismissed an appeal they earlier filed to stop their trial before the high court.
They have approached the appellate court after a Federal High Court, Lagos dismissed their fundamental rights enforcement suit, in which they were challenging the powers of the state government to try them based on the report of the Coroner’s court which indicted them.
The Lagos State Government had on September 26, 2013 set up a coroner inquest presided over by Chief Magistrate Komolafe to ascertain the cause of the collapsed building, which left about 116 people dead.
Most of the victims of the collapsed building located within the premises of the church, were of South Africa nationality, they were in Nigeria for religious tourism.
The Lagos state government is prosecuting the church trustees, the engineers and their companies on a 111 count charge of manslaughter and building without approval against the accused persons.
While the names of all the accused persons were mentioned in count one, which accused them of failing to obtain building approval contrary to Section 41 of the Urban and Regional Planning law of Lagos state.
The name of the church was omitted from court two to 111, which accused them of involuntary manslaughter causing death contrary to Section 222 of the criminal laws of Lagos state 2011.
At the resumed hearing of the matter on Friday, counsels to the 3rd and 5th defendants, Mrs. Titilola Akinlawon and that of the fourth defendant, Olalekan Ojo, said in view of the ruling of the Court of Appeal, they were constrained to withdraw their application for stay of proceedings dated February 18, 2015.
They, however, informed the court of another application seeking to quash the charges preferred against them by the state.
The state’s Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Mrs. Idowu Alakija, in her response, informed the court that they were served with a copy of the new application on Thursday.
Alakija said they would need time to respond to the application, and that they would not oppose the defendants’ request to withdraw their application for stay of proceedings.
Justice Lawal-Akapo later struck out the application and adjourned the case to March 22 for hearing of the fresh application.
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