Pfizer and Kano… Monkey Suffering and Baboon Feasting!

My hunch had been right all along: those who pretended to be human rights advocates and presided over the so-called “Trovan Victims Association” are not nearly as noble as they want the world to believe. To refresh our collective memory, we are talking about the Trovan Trial saga between the Federal and Kano State governments in Nigeria and the Pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer. Now that out-of-court settlement seems to be in sight, all sorts of Samaritans are coming out of the woodwork to try and corner the compensation funds due to be released by Pfizer. Recent revelations have shown that they are already ripping off the patients. What they are now waiting for is the big one – the Pfizer compensation which is expected to be in the region of $30 million.

Alhaji Garba Maisekeli, a former staff of a television station who is also the self-appointed Chairman of the “Trovan Victims’ Forum”, is reportedly at the head of the scam. According to reports from TheNews magazine, Pyramid newspapers and the Fresh Fact tabloid, there is a huge scam industry building up around the settlement matter.

First is the issue of the authentic list of patients who participated in the controversial Trovan trials. According to documents filed at the courts, Pfizer has a load of verifiable documents about every patient that took part in its trials. On the other side, the Maisekeli group claim to have a list but recent revelations have shown their list to be fraud-laden. What gave their game away was the fraud perpetrated during the Eid-El-Fitri festival when the state government released the sum of N100, 000 (one hundred thousand Naira) for each patient. According to reports which have not been denied so far, only N45, 000 (forty-five thousand naira) was paid to the patients. A simple calculation shows that if there are 200 ‘beneficiaries’, a slice of N55,000 from each beneficiary’s allocation rounds up to N11,000,000 (Eleven million naira). Is there still any wonder where all the money that the self-appointed middlemen have been spending to lob themselves into media relevance is coming from?

In the same vein, the Ungongo Local Government officially released the sum of N10,000 (ten thousand naira) to each of the patients, but in actual fact only N8,000 (eight thousand naira) got to the beneficiaries. Some Smart Alecs had creamed off N2, 000 per beneficiary. If the list of 200 patients was adhered to, the amount stolen from them at the small local government level comes to N400, 000 (four hundred thousand naira).

Since these characters also make pious pretensions, perhaps we should remind them of the words of the Holy Koran in Surah 83:

“ Woe to those that deal in fraud, Those who, when they have to receive by measure from men, exact full measure, But when they have to give by measure or weight to men, give less than due. Do they not think that they will be called to account?- On a Mighty Day, A Day when (all) mankind will stand before the Lord of the Worlds? Nay! Surely the record of the wicked is (preserved) in Sijjin. And what will explain to thee what Sijjin is?”

And then, there is the issue of fake patients. Investigations have shown that the Pfizer settlement is seen as an opportunity by the low and mighty to feather their nests and buy into the compensation package even where they have no link whatsoever with the Trovan trials. A case in point is 17-year-old Auwalu Magaji, grandson of a village head who was born disabled but is now being paraded as a “Trovan victim”. Auwalu’s name was added to the Maisekeli list so that he could benefit from the government largesse. Fake ‘victims’ like Auwalu cannot complain even if they were given only N10,000 because as it is the middlemen are merely doing them a favour as they ought not to have been among the beneficiaries in the first place. The scammers don’t have to comb too far in Kano to get willing accomplices in this game of manufacturing victims from the air. Because of the ravages of Polio over the years, Kano has more than its fair share of disabled people. Poverty is rife, as in many other parts of Nigeria. It is easy to recruit fake victims - in fact too easy. And that is the game the Maisekelis of this world have been playing.

Interestingly, they are gender-sensitive. Why design a mono-gender scam if you could make the whole affair look like it has affected both men and women? The scammers are nothing if not disingenuous. Consider the case of Malama Lantana Magaji, a twentyish woman who was born with hearing impairment. In a society where girls are married off early (some are married off as early as when they are nine or ten years old), this woman in her twenties is yet to find a husband, although her junior sisters have since been married with children. Close family members say Malama Lantana has not been able to attract suitors because of her disability. Yet this woman’s name found its way into the list of ‘Trovan victims’ being used by the ruthless cabal headed by Maisekeli.

There is also the case of Yusuf Ibrahim, another supposed ‘victim’. Yusuf was born with a withered hand but is now being paraded as a Trovan victim. Local sources recall how Yusuf’s parents tried without success to get a spiritual solution to the problem when the lad was still in infancy. Yusuf was taken to the Islamic healing crusade staged by the fiery Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky who claimed to have magical powers. An indigenous marabou (bamaguje in local parlance) had tried his hands at healing the boy and had already collected a live chicken and some other items to sacrifice to ‘evil spirits’ when the El-Zakzaky opportunity reared its head. As it turned out, El-Zakzaky could not cure Yusuf and the young man had been quietly living with his disability until he was recruited to pose as a ‘Trovan victim’.

The biggest industry in Kano now is the Trovan list. All manners of disabled people, especially those with well-connected family members are lobbying to be listed as ‘victims’. The calculation is that once your name is on the list you are a potential millionaire.

Then there is another interesting angle. Government officials and sundry notables are struggling to be numbered among those who have been helping the patients so that when the settlement is finalized they can be in a position to negotiate a slice of the loot based on their past ‘contributions’ to the upkeep of the patients.

All these may be news to Governor Shekarau who has, so far, not really shown that he cares about the behind-the-scene manouvres of various groups. The governor seems to mean well for the victims but he needs to demonstrate that he is street-wise by ensuring that his government liaises with Pfizer to work with ONLY the authentic list. Maisekeli and his cohorts have no place in the settlement and its aftermath. No self-serving group does. Only the identified patients should be called up. Also, independent monitors should be allowed to oversee the disbursement of funds, including funds for the rehabilitation of the IDH so as to have value for money.

The lawyers involved in the case are also hatching their own plans. It’s a chance for a big pay day and they are working towards cornering as much as they can. That is the only way one can understand the protracted negotiations. Under no circumstances should the bulk of the money go to lawyers. It would be immoral to allow that to happen. The first line of charge should be the patients and their entitlement should be based on their level of disability. The highest in this regard should go to those Trovan participants who did not survive the epidemic. Then, the next charge should be for the rehabilitation of the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), Kano and the training of medical personnel to empower them to cope with future epidemics (the meningitis epidemic seems to run in a ten-year cycle in the Northern parts of Nigeria). After all these, the lawyers can be settled but only within reasonable bounds. The Federal Government and the Kano State Government have a sacred duty to ensure that this settlement does not end up in the usual 419 manner of “Monkey suffering and baboon feasting”.