Lagos State government said yesterday that it did not rely on the service of any external laboratory overseas to determine the identity of the nine victims of the fire incident that occurred on Otedola Bridge, along Lagos-Ibadan expressway on June 28.
The state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr Adeniji Kazzem said this while addressing the opening of the third Lagos Forensic Symposium held at the Civic Centre, Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Represented by the Solicitor-General, Mrs Funlola Odunlami, Kazeem stated that the totality of the DNA analysis of the victims was carried out by the Lagos State DNA and Forensic Centre(LSD&FC) established two years ago.
Although the nine bodies were burnt beyond recognition, Kazeem said “the nine bodies were successfully matched with their families using DNA technology”.
According tom him, the identification process was completed in less than four weeks after the incident as against six months it would take if the samples had been taken abroad.
The DNA centre since its establishment, he said, has been playing a leading role in the rapid resolution of cases concerned with murder, child trafficking, rape and child defilement, burglary and disaster victim identification, emphasising “without scientific analysis, many criminal cases would have been difficult, if not impossible to solve.”
LSD&FC consultant Dr Richard Somiari said since the bodies were burnt beyond recognition, the centre invited the families of all those who claimed to have lost their relations in the fire incident for a reference DNA.
Somiari said every DNA sample collected were isolated, analysed using scientific methods and matched with that of the burnt bodies.
He said that through the analysis, they were able to identify the families of the victims.
