Nigeria Content Online

The
settlement of the Trovan trials case brought by the Nigerian plaintiffs against the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has
all the elements of a deal or no deal contest, at least on this side of the
Atlantic. In this famous game show where contestants have to choose between a
set of 26 identical briefcases holding anything from $.10 to $1million,
Nigerians deserve to know the exact contents of the ones collected on their
behalf by their “representatives” in the Kano State government.

The
settlement of the case brought by the plaintiffs represented something of an
achievement for Nigeria in the David and Goliath, Third World versus
Multinational giant category if you could ignore the searing tragedy that led
to it, both on the side of a rapacious multinational and the dubious tactics of
Nigerian officials who signed first and asked questions later.

The real
victims were the 30 families whose offspring were killed, maimed and paralysed
by the drug Trovan that had never been administered to children. Pfizer hit on
its idea to try it out in the midst of a raging meningitis outbreak in Kano in
August of 1996 that led to 12,000 deaths in the country. The US Federal Drug Administration approved
Trovan in 1998, two years later, for use on adults.

In May of
2006 a confidential report published by the Washington Post found that Pfizer
had violated Nigerian and international law in its trials on 200 children in
Kano in 1996. This finding led to criminal charges brought against Pfizer by
the Federal government in 2007, which sued for $ 6 billion in damages.

But the
issue here is not Pfizer, which argued in its defence that it had obtained
approval from Nigerian officials to conduct the trial.

The
Nigerian government system has been described as a kleptocracy and the handling
of the details of the settlement of this Pfizer case look to be following that
pattern.

Based on
the broad terms of the settlement Pfizer is to pay $30 million disbursed over
two years on heath care initiatives chosen by Kano State. Pfizer will pay $10 million towards the Kano
State governments legal fees and $30 or $35 million, there is some discrepancy
here, will be used to set up a fund for valid claims from eligible victims who
were part of the trial. A six-person panel established by Kano State and Pfizer
will determine the eligibility of the victims and the level of compensation.

In return Kano State will drop civil and
criminal claims against Pfizer. Last
year a statement in the Washington Post credited to Babatunde Irukera in who
represented Kano State when the
settlement was announced in August of 2009
said the Federal government’s case against the company was not affected
by this settlement But this paper has reported that an agreement brokered by
former Federal Attorney General and Minister of Justice Michael Aondoakaa has
led to the withdrawal of the Federal governments $6 billion suit also. “People and entities can and must be held
accountable for the consequences of their conduct,” Mr Irukera was quoted as
saying.

That same
accountability we would say requires the Kano State government to be open and
scrupulously detailed as it disburses the funds for the victims and for the
healthcare projects, even before we begin to ponder the possible subterranean
terms of the agreement brokered on Aondoakaa’s behalf by a team of lawyers.

The issue
here from the start was justice, on behalf of 200 sick children who were used
as fodder for illegal clinical tests, not lawyers and their fees, government
officials and secret ‘settlements’ or a pharmaceutical giant anxious to ward
off any bad publicity.

Full
disclosure and transparent monitoring is what justice demands for the souls of
the 11 children who died, and the rest who were paralysed or brain damaged by
the administration of the experimental drug Trovan.