Ogundeji and Fatiregun alongside their companies, Hardrock Construction and Engineering Company and Jandy Trust Limited, are facing involuntary manslaughter charges over the death of 116 persons in the collapsed SCOAN’s building on September 12, 2014.
Also standing trial on the collapsed building are the Registered Trustees of SCOAN, who were charged with the offence of building without obtaining the approval of the Lagos State Government.
The trial, which was scheduled to commence on Monday before Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo of a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, was however stalled as the four defence counsel raised an objection to the testimony of the first prosecution witness, Adebayo Olayinka.
Soon after Olayinka stepped into the witness box on Monday, counsel for the first defendant, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), stood up and observed that the statement of the witness was not part of the proof of evidence made available by the prosecution to the defence.
Fagbemi argued that allowing Olayinka to testify while the defence counsel had no idea of the evidence he intended to give would amount to ambushing the defence or catching them by surprise.
“Eight people were listed as prosecution witnesses; out of these eight witnesses, only the statements of numbers one, two and three were frontloaded.
“The statement of the gentleman in the box has not been frontloaded and he’s number five on the list. What he’s coming to say, we have no idea. If there’s another witness, whose evidence has been frontloaded, we can call him, but certainly not this witness,” Fagbemi said.
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