An explosives and weapons expert, Biedomo Iguniwei, on Friday insisted that the Synagogue Church of All Nations guest house collapse was caused by a high energy infrasonic weapon.
Iguniwei, a former research scientist in weapons production with the Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria, Kaduna, made the claim while tendering a research paper before the coroner’s court investigating the incident.
The presentation of the research paper was in compliance with the directive of the Coroner, Oyetade Komolafe, who requested for it as an addendum to Iguniwei’s earlier deposition before the inquest.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the inquest was set up by the Lagos State Government to investigate the September 12, 2014 building collapse, which killed 116 people, mainly South Africans.
Iguniwei said he was instructed by the church to carry out scientific analysis of the materials from the scene to ascertain the possibility of the collapse being caused by deployment of infrasonic weapon.
The witness said an infrasonic weapon was a low sonic radiation used as a weapon to cause structural damage and destruction to objects.
According to the research paper, Iguniwei maintained that the collapse of the guest house was caused by an infrasonic weapon fired at the church.
The witness faulted the position of the Lagos State Government which tends to support structural defect as cause of the collapse building.
He maintained that scientific evidence coupled with CCTV footage suggest that the building collapsed due to high energy infrasound absorption.
Iguniwei said: “The Lagos State Government has been pushing the reason for the collapse to be due to foundation or structural defects, to poor construction standards used by the church engineers to construct the building.
“The church, on the other hand, has alluded the collapse to a terror attack or sabotage by explosives and controlled demolition.
“Having looked at all the reasons adduced and personally visited the scene of the collapse and analysed the video footage of the preceding moments before the collapse of the structure, it was deduced that the collapse resulted from high energy infrasound absorption by the building leading to a high energy resonance of the constituent atoms of the building.”
The witness said all other causes being put forward had been eliminated scientifically, creating what appears to be a mystery (due to limited knowledge) surrounding the collapse of the building.
He said: “The foundation failure option cannot hold scientifically because upon inspection of the foundation pads of the building, it was observed that the foundation pads are still intact with no stress or cracks on the steel and concrete pillars protruding from the earth.
“The CCTV footage showed a collapse that is not consistent with other known buildings that have collapsed as a result of structural failure.
“As it is, it can be concluded scientifically that there were no explosives in the building when it collapsed upon the post-blast analysis done.
“So far, the only reasonable explanation of the cause of collapse is the use of infrasonic weapon on the building.”
NAN reports that the matter was adjourned till April 29 for further hearing.