Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on Saturday visited the
collapsed guesthouse at a mega-church in Lagos, promising to investigate
the cause of the tragedy as the death toll hit 86, rescuers said
Saturday.
“The president came to the church this
morning to see
things for himself. He met with Prophet T.B. Joshua and expressed his
condolences to the bereaved families,” Ibrahim Farinloye of the National
Emergency Management Agency told AFP.
He said Jonathan promised
to investigate the cause of the September 12 collapse of the guesthouse
at Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) which left scores trapped in
the debris.
Farinloye said the death toll now stood at 86 as
against the previous figure of 84 after the various emergency teams
involved in the operation had reconciled their figures.
“You are
aware that several rescue teams at the state and federal levels were
involved in the operations. We sat together and reconciled our figures
which has now brought the death toll to 86. But those rescued still
stands at 131,” he said.
Farinloye could not say if the new death toll included 84 South
Africans who had been confirmed dead in the incident by the country’s
high commissioner to Nigeria Lulu Mnguni.
It is believed that
there were 349 South Africans visiting the popular church in the Ikotun
district of the city at the time of the collapse.
The church’s
leader Joshua, who has blamed the incident on sabotage, is one of
Nigeria’s most well-known Pentecostal preachers and is referred to by
followers across the world as “The Prophet” or “The Man of God”.
He claims to work miracles, including raising people from the dead and healing the sick, and foreseeing disasters.
The Lagos state government has accused the church of adding extra floors to the existing structure without approval.
It
has ordered urgent structural integrity tests on all buildings in the
sprawling compound, including the main church, which Joshua says was
designed by the Holy Spirit.
In deed can holy spirit design this your comment
Source:PM News
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