Collapsed Synagogue Building did not have approval -Commissioner

 The Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Development and Urban Planning, Mr Toyin Ayinde, on Thursday, revealed that the collapsed guest house, belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), has no approval from the state government.Testifying before the coroner, sitting in Ikeja and presided over by chief magistrate, Mr Oyetade Komolafe,  said

“The approval given to the church was for the main building and not the one that collapsed. The collapsed building, by the record of the Lagos State government, does not have approval.We later demanded for the drawing of the collapsed building from Prophet T.B Joshua and other materials, but up till today, we are yet to get a reply,”

“The approval that we saw was in the name of the Synagogue Church of All Nations dated January 26, 2004 but that approval was just for the main auditorium and one of the things we discovered was that it was an approval for a five-floor development.

But on our visit to the site, we discovered that the building had beentaken to eight floors; we do not have the records of the additional floors, making those floors illegal construction. Did we see anything on the collapsed building? No. In our records, the collapsed building has no approval.

“Prophet T.B Joshua invited us into his office and requested to know if we have seen the CCTV footage and we answered in the negative.However, the CCTV footage given to us indicated that the aircraft which flew over the building at that time might have been responsible for the collapse of the building.We sent the CCTV footage to the NCAA to ascertain the aircraft which flew at that time the building collapsed. We later got an information from the NCAA that some air force aircraft were on training.

“If you fail to plan, you have already planned to fail. The building collapsed as a result of structural defect. There is no doubt that there is need to control movement in and out of an emergency scene.