Saboteurs may be responsible for collapse in Synagogue say police

The Homicide Department of the
State Criminal Investigation
Department, Panti, Lagos, has
submitted that the Synagogue six-
storey building could have been
felled by a technique termed
Controlled Demolition.
According to the SCID, Controlled
Demolition is when a building is
felled using a chemical or
electronic device.
The position of the SCID was given
by the Head, Homicide
Investigation and Crime Scene
Management, DSP Olusola Agoyi.
Agoyi testified on Wednesday at
the resumed sitting of the coroner,
Magistrate O.A. Komolafe, probing
the cause of the September 12
tragedy.
The accident claimed no fewer
than 116 lives.
Agoyi, in his testimony, said the
speed and the rate at which the
Synagogue building caved in,
coupled with some dust-like smoke
that followed were peculiar
elements seen only in a building
felled by Controlled Demolition.
“My lord, when you use chemical
or electronic device to bring down
a building, it is controlled
demolition. I found out from the
CCTV that the rate and the speed
of the fall of the building within
seconds was just like that of a
controlled demolition. Aside that,
the CCTV 3 captured the dust-like
smoke coming out of the collapsed
building.”
Further lending weight to his
claim, Agoyi referred the coroner to
the oral account of one of the 34
survivors that he said were
interviewed in the course of his
intelligent findings.
“The panel also interviewed one
Taiwo Temitayo Taiwo, aged 28,
one of the surviving victims of the
collapsed building and I quote,
‘Immediately the building was
coming down, what I saw or heard
was like a thunderous lightning
accompanied with a sound, hitting
the wall as if someone was using a
saw to cut an iron, then the house
collapsed,’” Agoyi submitted.
The investigator said it was not
impossible for a saboteur to have
disguised into the church premises
as a lodger or a visitor.
Insisting on his claims, he added
that it would be in the overall
interest of the country to subject
the findings of the police to further
expert investigations outside the
country, in order to clear all
possible doubts.