The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, LASEMA has said that the reason the casualty figure from the collapsed six-storey building belonging to the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN was high was due to the resistance it met on arrival at the scene of the accident.
Olufemi Damilola Oke, General Manager of LASEMA and a witness to the Lagos State government said the reason only 131 lives were saved from the debris was because officials of the agency were delayed for about 30-minutes on arrival before they were finally allowed into the scene by members of the church and security officers attached to the church.
Giving his testimony before the inquest, the medical doctor said apart from the fact that his team and other rescue groups experienced pockets of violent confrontation from members of the church throughout the 7-days of the operation, the church also refused to give them the manifest in order to determine the number of people in the collapsed guesthouse.
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