Following the September 12, 2014 tragedy of the collapse of a guest house owned by the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in a suburb of Lagos, which claimed the lives of 116 persons, mostly South African nationals, the coroner’s inquest instituted by the Lagos State government last October and presided over by Mr. Oyetade Komolafe, a Chief Magistrate, has not recorded much progress because of the delay in bringing the founder of the church, Prophet Temitope B. Joshua, to appear before it and give evidence. Last December, Chief Magistrate Komolafe suspended further actions on the invitation the coroner extended to Prophet Joshua to appear before it for the purpose of volunteering evidence, pending the determination of a suit he (TB Joshua) filed against the coroner’s probe.
Instead of appearing before the coroner, Prophet Joshua had filed an application before Justice Lateefat Okunnu of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja, seeking for stay of proceedings of the inquest and suspension of actions on his invitation to appear before the coroner to give evidence. In his application dated November 11, 2014, he (Prophet Joshua) asked for a judicial review of the coroner’s proceedings, which began on October 13. He asked the court to declare that his invitation to appear as a witness before the coroner was a breach of his right to fair hearing, as no case had been established against his person before the coroner. He contended, in addition, that the coroner’s inquest was extending inquisition into areas beyond its statutory purview. Justice Okunnu had fixed December 22, 2014, to hear the application.
Chief Magistrate Komolafe had about a week earlier, dismissed a similar application filed by Prophet Joshua before him on the grounds that it constituted an abuse of court process. But subsequently, the coroner, last December after listening to an oral application by Prophet Joshua’s lead counsel, Chief Lateef Fagbemi,(SAN), decided to suspend the prophet’s appearance pending the determination of his suit before Justice Okunnu.
Media reports, last Saturday, however, indicated that Prophet Joshua had lost the bid to abort his appearance before the coroner. Justice Okunnu, in her verdict on the matter, affirmed the witness summons issued on the Synagogue Church founder by Chief Magistrate Komolafe. “Having read the transcript from the proceedings, I regret that I do not share the applicant’s point of view that respondent has been biased or unfair and has breached the principle of natural justice…It is the coroner himself that largely hunts for evidence that he considers to be useful to him”.
Now that Justice Okunnu has cleared the coast, it may only be hoped that the coroner’s inquest will now take its course unhindered, though we are not oblivious of Prophet Joshua’s right of appeal. But it is pathetic that the coroner’s inquest has been lingering for reasons that are at best tenuous and reminding those who lost dear ones to the building collapse tragedy of their pains. Whatever reasons that make Prophet Joshua reluctant to physically appear before the coroner’s inquest are, indeed, worth pondering about. Yet it will be most charitable for the respected prophet to cooperate with the coroner’s investigation so that the truth of the building collapse can be revealed and the tragic incident put behind.
We concede, however, that a suspect remains innocent of any crime in the eyes of the law until he or she is formally arraigned in court and his alleged offences are proved beyond any reasonable doubts. But not penalising suspects, no matter how highly placed, summoned by the court, but who failed to honour such summons based on frivolous excuses or no explanation at all, is one of the main reasons lawlessness and moral degeneracy are being entrenched in the country. Incidentally, the slap-on-the-wrist treatment Nigerian courts give to accused persons involved in contempt for summons, especially when they are privileged citizens or organisations, not only encourages such contempt, but erodes the potency of law and the nation’s criminal justice system. The courts should strive never to encourage impunity in whatever guise. The judiciary should sit up and be firm in handling brazen contempt cases, notwithstanding the antics of some complicit lawyers in encouraging the aberration.
