By AbdulWahab Abdulah & Jane Echewodo

Lagos—A Consultant Pathologist, Prof. John Obafunwa yesterday told an Ikeja High Court that five dead bodies, victims of the collapsed guest house at the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, are yet to be identified. The guest house collapsed on 12th September 2014.

Prof Obafunwa

Obafunwa, a former Vice Chancellor of the Lagos State University, who testified before Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo said that the unidentified corpses are kept in mortuary to avoid decomposition.

The collapsed building in Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, killed no fewer than 116 worshippers who lodged at the guest house.

Led in evidence by Idowu Alakija, the State Director of Public Prosecution, DPP, the Consultant Pathologist to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, further confirmed that injuries, traumatic asphyxia, severe blood loss, severe fracture and compression of the skull with the brain tissue, congested heart failure against the background of hypertension, and accumulation of blood in the chest cavity caused in the death of the late victims.

Professor Obafunwa said that: “To avoid any decomposition, we have to embalm the bodies in the various mortuaries and they were given identification numbers.

“On the September 22, 2014, I received a oroners’ order to commence a post-mortem examination for identification purposes.

“The bodies were finger printed, examined externally, opened up and examined internally, and samples were taken from various organs to examine them under the microscope.

“We took samples of bones, muscles, pulled hair where available for the purposes of DNA analysis and those samples were sent to a laboratory in South Africa about middle of October, 2014.

“We also collected DNA samples from the relations of the deceased victims. “The whole idea was to identify cause of the death of the affected victims and in the process we were able to identify 110 victims from the 116 that died apart from the one that died after 10 days of admission at LASUTH.

“All the dead bodies were issued death certificate after identification and the immediate cause of their death was indicated therein,” he added.

The Lagos state government dragged the Registered Trustees of SCOAN alongside two engineers; Messrs Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun and their companies, Hardrock Construction and Engineering Company and Jandy Trust Limited to court to give answers to a 111-count charge over their alleged involvement in the collapsed six-storey guest house belonging to the church, causing the death of 116 persons.

Basically, the charge borders on criminal negligence, manslaughter and failure to obtain building permit.

Justice Akapo subsequently adjourned till January 19, 2017 for Continuation of trial.