HIGHLIGHTS OF COURT PROCEEDING ON SYNAGOGUE BUILDING COLLAPSE.

Venue: Justice Lawal Akapo's Court (former Justice Jose's Court), Ikeja High Court, Ikeja, Lagos State.

Date: Thursday 30th March, 2017

Start: 10:15am

BCPG Members Attendees:
1. Engr. Oreoluwa Fadayomi
2. ESV. kayode Ogunji
3. Engr. Friday Chukwu
4. Engr. Saheed OGUNNIYI.

Engr. Oreoluwa Fadayomi was called upon to witness box to report the findings of the investigation of the Synagogue building Collapse conducted by BCPG Technical Committee.

Engr. Fadayomi gave his carrier history.

He also gave a brief history, composition and objectives of BCPG.

Engr. Fadayomi outlined the steps taken by BCPG Technical Committee during the investigation. He was the structural engineer in the committee.
Engr. Fadayomi read out the documents he collected from the Coroner.

He noted that there were two sets of Structural Engineering drawings with significant variances. The two sets of structural drawings namely;

1. The copy of the drawing published in NBRRI Report No. 35 dated November 2014 which is a technical report on the collapse by the NBRRI / COREN.

2. Cell Engineering Consultant Structural Drawings dated August 2008.

Other documents collected are:

3. Mariano Consult Architectural drawings.

4. Geomech Engineering Company Limited Sub-soil Investigation Report for the Synagogue Site.

5. Lagos State Materials Testing Laboratory Sub-soil Investigation Report.

6. Synagogue Church of All Nations CD titled "A Memory of Master of Faith".

7. Position witness of record of Engr. Saheed Ariori and Engr. Ogundeji Oladele Martins.


BCPG Technical Committee Findings:

1. The person that prepared and stamped the structural drawings in the NBRRI/COREN report who is said to be Engr. Akinfemwa who also testified at the NBRRI/COREN Panel was found not to be a registered engineer on COREN registered engineers' list.

2. After thorough Comparison of the two sets of Structural drawings listed above, BCPG Technical Committee found out that the drawing in the NBRRI/COREN report has an expansion joint while that of CELL Engineering Consultant structural drawings do not.

Engr. Fadayomi further stated that the committee was told at the Coroner's Inquest that the structural drawings used for construction was that of CELL Engineering Consultant drawings. So, the BCPG Committee based its investigation on CELL Engineering Consultant structural drawings.

3. Engr. Fadayomi explained that it was expected that the collapsed Synagogue building with a length of 57m was supposed to have an expansion joint which it did not have as shown on the CELL Engineering Consultant structural drawings and confirmed on site.

3. The collapsed building was 57m long by 11m width with a height of 27m. A building with a height of 27m is supposed to have rigid points such as reinforced concrete shear walls preferable at its two ends. These are the code requirements for a robust building. These rigid points are missing in the structural drawings and neither were they seen on site.

4. On structural elements such as columns, Beams and floor slabs.

4a. Floor Beams:
The floor Beams as shown on the drawings are 750mm deep, 225mm wide and are to span 10.3m. After on-site visual assessment, the constructed floor beam size matched with the size on the structural drawings, but the steel reinforcement bars were different. On site, the floor beam contains 8H20 steel reinforcement bars at the bottom as against 10H25 which is shown on the drawings.
Engr. Fadayomi concluded that the reinforcement used was about half of what should be used as indicated on the structural drawings.
In addition, the floor beams as seen on site had top reinforcement bars of 3H16 which is inadequate in accordance with standard code of practice. It is expected that at least 25 percent of the area of bottom reinforcement should have been provided at the top.

There were 8 Nos of such beams on each floor and there were 6 suspended floors of such.

Our design checks revealed that the structural design was inadequate

.
Even if the constructor had conformed strictly to the structural design drawings, the constructed building would have been structural inadequate.

Engr. Fadayomi further stated that the beam should not have been less than 1200mm deep instead of the 750mm as designed and constructed.

In addition, the drawings did not provide enough anchorage length for the beam steel reinforcement bars that went into the column.

4b. Columns:
BCPG Technical Committee found out that two of the columns on the ground floor in particular, Columns on Grid C/1 and C/4 were under reinforced.
Column C/4 had nearly half of the reinforcement that it ought to have had.

All the ground floor columns were slender.

4c. Foundation:
Going by the sub-soil investigation conducted by the Church and BCPG independent Sub-soil Investigation report, showing almost the same allowable bearing capacity. The plan size of the column bases indicated on the drawings and confirmed on site were inadequate to support the columns loads distribution.
From structural adequacy checks carried out by BCPG Technical Committee, it was found that the sizes of bases required to adequately support the columns range between 2.4m x 2.4m to 3.0m x 3.0m as against 2.0m x 2.0m as shown on the drawings and confirmed on site.
The columns bases were undersized.

Conclusion:
Engr. Fadayomi summarized the causes of the collapse of Synagogue Building as follows:

1. There was no expansion joint in the building.

2. The structural system used was not robust enough due to lack of rigid points (such as shear walls).

3. The sizes of some key structural elements and reinforcement were inadequate.

Simply put, the design issues were what lead to the collapse. Even if the contractor had constructed as designed, the collapse could still have happened.

The defendant's lawyer requested for an adjournment. He claimed that there were lot of technical issues raised by Engr. Fadayomi which he would need some time to research on.

The Judge adjourned the hearing to April 20th and April 26th, 2017.

The court hearing ended around 2:30pm.