Trustees of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) are now to be arraigned on February 18 2016.
This is the new date fixed by Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo of a Lagos High Court for their trial over the collapse of a six-storey guest house belonging to the church on September 12, 2014, which led to the death of 116 persons.
Two engineers, who constructed the collapsed building are to be arraigned alongside the trustees. The engineers are: Messrs Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, and their companies: Hardrock Construction and Engineering Company and Jandy Trust Limited are going through the court trial.
The court had fixed Monday, February 8, to resume hearing after dismissing the separate applications filed by the two engineers, seeking to stop their prosecution on the grounds that it was lacking in merit.
It would be recalled that the Lagos State government had late last year slammed a 111-count criminal charge against the trustees of the church, the two engineers, and their companies.
But the engineers (4th and 5th defendants) had challenged the legality of the court processes instituted against them by the state government.
The court on December 11, 2015 granted leave to the prosecution to serve the 4th and 5th defendants through substituted means after several attempts to serve them were not successful.
Justice Lawal-Akapo then ordered the prosecution to paste the court papers on the front doors of the 4th and 5th defendants’ residences at the Alagbado and Ikeja areas of Lagos respectively.
The judge also ordered the prosecution to file photographic evidence featuring the sheriff pasting the court papers.
But the defendants through their lawyers, Chief E.L. Akpofure (SAN) and Mrs. Titi Akinlawon (SAN), contended that the order to serve them by substituted means was wrongfully granted by Justice Lawal-Akapo.
They described the judge as a functus officio and urged him to set aside the order for substituted service because it was obtained in breach of the relevant law.
Akpofure contended that in the absence of a valid service everything done by the court would be a nullity.
The senior advocate had also argued that the Lagos State Attorney-General, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, ought not to have filed the charges in the first place, as he was on December 2, 2015 restrained by Justice Ibrahim Buba of a Federal High Court in Lagos not to prosecute the engineers, pending the outcome of an appeal they filed against Buba’s judgment in their fundamental rights enforcement suits.
He also pointed out that the engineers were charged based on the July 8, 2015 verdict of a Lagos Coroner’s Court presided over by Mr. Oyetade Komolafe, which he said was against the provisions of the relevant law.
The counsel to Fatiregun and Jandy Trust Limited, Mrs. Akinlawon, in her submission, agreed with Akpofure’s line of argument and urged Justice Lawal-Akapo to “stop the attorney-general from violating a subsisting court order”.
But the prosecution team, led by the Lagos State Director of Public Prosecutions, Mrs. Idowu Alakija, described the defendants’ application as frivolous and urged the court to dismiss them.
She argued that once Justice Lawal-Akapo had made the order, he could not overrule himself, stressing that only an appellate court could set aside the order of substituted service already granted.
She insisted that the law was clear on the authority of the attorney-general to prosecute.
Ruling on the applications yesterday, Justice Lawal-Akapo held that the essence and importance of service to the judicial system in criminal matters could not be over-emphasised.
He stated that the purpose of the service was to afford the person being charged to court an opportunity to react, adding that there are provisions for substituted service in the laws of the country.
Comments