The building collapse of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) on September 12 earlier this year led to the dead of scores of people, most of them South Africans.
In the aftermath, T.B Joshua and his people took the opportunity to come out and say anything they could think of regarding what must have happened; ranging from demonic attack targeted at the prophet, mysterious UFO’s, and the coup de grace: controlled demolition.
For earthly institutions like Government, they can only deal with physical phenomena. Thus the Lagos state government set up an inquest into the entire event considering there were too many questions to be ignored. After some monitoring of the Nigerian media’s coverage of the inquest, it looks like things are slowly unravelling for T.B Joshua and SCOAN.
First is the complete discrediting of the idea of a controlled blast, explosion or demolition of any kind. Expert witnesses on the subject emphatically denied the possibility of that as the probable cause of the collapse. The Head of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency-Femi Oke-Osayintolu (MD), also said the evidence does not point to that.
“On observation, bodies were not mutilated. They were not disjointed… the bodies were not burned”
Other expert witnesses have noted that the new guesthouse, site of the crash, did not have planning permission. Other structures on the site, including the main church auditorium itself, have been found to be structurally defective.
Several claims had been made that in the immediate aftermath of the collapse rescue workers’ efforts were impeded, an accusation SCOAN has flatly denied. The inquest was told that was exactly what happened, and the delay could potentially have cost several lives.
“The crowd impeded our operation. They did not allow our personnel and equipment to come in. They frustrated emergency workers at the scene” Mr Osayintolu further added.
He said for the first three days this is what happened, only church members allowed to aid in search and rescue whilst the professionals were impeded. Only the intervention of the Lagos State Governor turned the tide.
“By the time we attained momentum after 96 hours, a lot of things had gone bad”
A Red Cross official also confirmed majority of those who carried out search and rescue the first few days were church members, who in his opinion were incapable of administering basic first aid to the victims.
Joshua himself has been summoned twice, but failed to appear on either occasion. The judge threatened to have him arrested after the first snub, but after he failed to reappear for the scheduled hearing yesterday, his lawyer told the hearing had not been personally served with the summons.
“The man of God has not been personally served with the summons. He was unavoidably absent when the sheriff went for the service”
The lawyer went on to state they would not want to create the impression Joshua was avoiding the court.
For now things are not looking particularly bright for SCOAN, but maybe Joshua can turn the tide with his testimony; if he ever finds the ‘cojones’ to make his appearance.
It seems in the realm of physicality everything is pointing to gross negligence leading to the tragedy, but I’m sure ‘Prophet’ and his followers would still found a way to explain away everything: pointing the blame everywhere else except at the people responsible, themselves.
Quotes credit: The Vanguard