Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo of an Ikeja High Court has struck out an application by the the Trustees of the Synagogue Church of All Nations(SCOAN) seeking for a stay of proceedings in the hearing of the criminal charge slammed on them by the Lagos State Government. This was sequel to the withdrawal of the application by the Trustees owing to the ruling of the Appeal Court, Lagos Division, in which their appeal to stay their trial was dismissed.
The Lagos State Government had filed a 111-counts charge bordering on involuntary manslaughter against the Registered Trustees and two of its Engineers over the September 12, 2014 collapse of a six storey guest house within the premises of the church.
At yesterday’s proceedings, defendants’ lawyers, Mrs. Titilola Akinlawon and Olalekan Ojo, told Justice Akapo that in view of the ruling of the Court of Appeal, they were constrained to withdraw their application for stay of proceedings dated February 18, 2015. They, however, informed the court of another application seeking to quash the charges preferred against them by the state dated March 3, 2015.
The state Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Mrs. Idowu Alakija, in her response, informed the court she was served with the application about 24 hours ago. The DPP director, who requested for time to allow the state respond to the application, said she was not opposed to the defendants’ request to withdraw their application for stay of proceedings.
