116 Dead and No Building Permit: A Lagos Coroner Blames a Megachurch’s Guesthouse Collapse on Design Errors

• A six-storey building at a Lagos megachurch collapsed in September 2014, killing 116 people
• The coroner found the church never obtained a permit or approval before building
• Design and detailing errors, not a passing aircraft, caused the failure
• Prosecution of the church and an inquiry into two contractors were recommended

Ten months after a six-storey building at the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos came down on top of its occupants, a coroner has laid the blame squarely on how it was built. Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe found that the structure on Segun Irefin Street in Egbe failed because of a “combination of designs and detailing errors”, Vanguard reported in July 2015.

The collapse on 12 September 2014 killed 116 people: 60 men and 56 women, among them a six-year-old child. Eighty-five of the dead were South Africans and 22 were Nigerians, with others from Benin and Togo. Six were never identified. The church, led by the televangelist TB Joshua, drew large numbers of foreign visitors.

The most damaging finding for the church concerned paperwork. The coroner held that the church “did not get the necessary permit or approval before commencing construction” and recommended that it be prosecuted for building without them. A theory that an aircraft flying overhead had brought the building down was rejected outright: the court said the “alleged aircraft was not the cause of the building collapse.”

The recommendations went further. The coroner called for two contractors, Oladele Ogundeji and Akinbela Fatiregun, to be investigated for criminal negligence, for the local police commander to be replaced, and for fitness inspections of every structure on the church’s premises. Notably, the court also urged the authorities to cut the cost of building permits and clear administrative bottlenecks, an acknowledgement that expensive, slow approvals push builders to skip them. The church’s lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, pushed back, saying the ruling found “the church building collapsed due to structural failure but never said the church was guilty.”

For Jamaican congregations, the lesson travels well. Many local churches grow in stages, adding a floor or an annex whenever the building fund allows, and the temptation to build first and seek approval later is real. The Lagos case shows how that shortcut can end: a structure that fails, a legal finding that the owners never had permission, and a congregation left carrying the blame. Returnees and diaspora donors who fund church extensions back home are entitled to ask the same questions a coroner would: who designed it, who approved it, and who checked it was built as drawn.

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