The coroner probing the September 12, 2014 Synagogue building collapse, Magistrate O.A. Komolafe, said on Wednesday that he has received the list of the people lodging in the building prior to the accident.
The coroner had demanded for the list from the Synagogue Church of All Nations, following a request by the Lagos State Chief Forensic Pathologist, Prof. John Obafunwa.
Obafunwa, leading a team of forensic pathologists conducting autopsy on the bodies of the accident victims, had said the list of the lodgers would be needed to identify the bodies.
No fewer than 116 persons lost their lives while several others sustained varying degrees of injuries in the accident.
At the Wednesday proceeding, Obafunwa gave the assurance that his team will reveal the identities of the dead persons upon the conclusion of their work.
The pathologist, who said his team was able to identify 100 per cent and 98 per cent of the victims of the Associated Airline and Dana Airline accidents respectively, assured that Synagogue’s case would not be different.
Obafunwa gave this assurance while answering questions under cross-examination by lawyer to the church, Mr. Olalekan Ojo.
He said, “We know what we had to do and how we had to do it. The same thing happened in the Dana crash in which we identified 98 per cent of the victims. This same thing happened in the Associated Airline crash in which we identified 100 per cent of the victims.”
In his testimonies, the pathologist told the coroner that his final report will, apart from revealing the identities of the victims, also give the cause of their deaths and the possible cause of the building collapse.
“The final report will contain the various causes of death, which will answer so many questions as to what collapsed the building.
“It will tell us who died in the accident, by way of disaster victim identification,” Obafunwa said.
The pathologist further testified that he was in the position to tell whether the victims were exposed to smoke or corrosive odours from an explosive, if it was true that the building collapsed as a result of detonations.
He said, “As a forensic pathologist, I can identify the effect of corrosive burns, even when I was not there, even with just the photographs (taken during autopsy) and the detailed information from the autopsy report.
“Something related to that is the presence or absence of smoke after 10 days of embalment. You don’t look for smoke outside the body; the evidence of smoke inhalation is in the lungs and we took samples of the lungs and examined them under the microscope.
“If a building collapsed as a result of explosion, there could be a variety of injuries. Some people might die from the crush effect, some people might die as a result of fire; the fire could occur before or even after, you will still see burns. The question is whether the person died in the fire or before the fire. The person could die as a result of severe blood loss because of injury from shrapnels. There are multiple ways in which death could arise when you have an explosion, you could have complete disintegration; I am just giving a general answer.”
Meanwhile, a Lagos-based lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje has asked a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos State to put a halt to further proceedings of the coroner court.
Ogungbeje, in his suit filed on Tuesday, is arguing that the set-up of the coroner court was in violation of the fundamental principles of natural justice as preserved by Section 36 of the Constitution.
The lawyer contended that the outcome of the coroner’s inquest was already a predetermined one.
He argued that the coroner was set up by the Lagos State Government after its agencies had already made public statements indicting the church and its founder, Pastor T.B. Joshua. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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