Trovan Settlement: Stop Spreading Mischief

Trovan Settlement: Stop Spreading Mischief
By
Yau Zurumi
(yauzuru@gmail.com)
Laborious as reading the article, “Kano Pfizer Victims’ Compensation and Saboteur Writers” on gamji.com turned out to be, I managed to decipher the fact that its writer, Isa Muhammad Inuwa, is one of “grand patron” Maisikeli’s ‘consultants’. I forgive his grammatical inadequacies seeing that he has signed off as a correspondent of Radio Deutsche Welle. I take it that he reports for the Hausa service and therefore does not have to pass the standard test applied to the English medium journalists he tried to rubbish. I don’t know what any normal person can have against the clamour to ensure that those who participated in the Trovan trials are not shortchanged.
Unless a person has criminal intent it is difficult to understand the opposition to transparency in the disbursement of funds. I have written several articles on the settlement issue and I am glad that we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Many well meaning people are delighted by the positive turn of events in the settlement talks. But insha Allah, none of the professional money-snatchers struggling for recognition will get their hands on money meant for the patients or the funds for the rehabilitation of healthcare facilities in Kano.
The attempt to demonize anyone who calls for transparency is an old but cheap trick used by people without cerebral endowments. It is easier for them to reduce the issue to their gutter level where things would be muddied. But facts are sacred and comments free. Even if Isa Mohammad Inuwa derives his daily bread from the loot in Maisikeli’s custody, that is no licence for libeling decent people. The attack on Doctors Isa Dutse and Sanda Muhammad is quite irresponsible. Inuwa also finds it expedient to pour insults on newspaper columnists who have called for a transparent process; respected public commentators like Abbah Mahmoud and Sanusi Abubakar are called unflattering names simply because they insist that the settlement funds should not be treated the same way we treat public funds – sharing them among members of an inner circle.
No commentator has ever said anything against the settlement talks. All they have insisted is that no matter how big the sum is, the families of the patients should directly receive the money after due verification. Who but a crooked schemer could be against such a honest piece of advice? It is worthy of note that one of the problems of the writer is that he mixes up his local fight with two journalists in Kano with the comments of other journalists outside the city. It is best to leave their local fight to them at their level of operation because to comment further on that will not dignify this piece.
Obviously the writer Inuwa is operating from a position of blissful ignorance. People like him and Maisikeli have been misleading Kano people about the facts of the case in court. People like us who have seen through all the lies have cautioned our people not to fall for the cheap attempt to railroad them into a fight they can’t finish because the defence filed in court clearly contradicts all the propaganda being churned out by Maisikeli and his gang of gold-diggers. It is on record, and any interested person with the appropriate intellectual tools can access the records in court. Pfizer was permitted to carry out the trials by the federal and Kano State governments. Also, NAFDAC gave them a written permission. What then is all this talk about sneaking into Nigeria? There were nurses on hand who interpreted what was going on in Hausa language to the patients and their guardians. And then what were the results? Pfizer had a higher survival rate than “Doctors Without Borders” who also operated side by side with Pfizer. These facts are incontrovertible and I would advise Inuwa and his paymasters to get a copy of the relevant documents from the honourable Attorney-General of Kano.
Perhaps one should ask Inuwa if he knows something about the misinformation slotted into the German journal, Der Spiegel which carried a photograph of one Anas Mohammed and described him as a Trovan victim. It turned out that Anas was never placed on Trovan but on the gold standard drug and that he did not suffer hearing and vocal disabilities as claimed by the desperate informants of the German news medium. I read Der Spiegel’s retraction of the story and their apology to the reading public for the misinformation. Without doubt, a ‘patriotic’ busybody like Inuwa must have been behind the falsehood.
As I have said, I am not aware of any NGO that wants to take over the sharing of the settlement funds. The so-called Trovan Victims’ Forum is the only unregistered body seeking to profit from the settlement. I must not fail to highlight the innuendo contained in the said write-up to the effect that Abuja and southern newspapers were conspiring against the Trovan Victims’ Forum. That puerile assertion can only come from a demented mind incapable of sustaining an argument without bringing in religion and ethnicity. It is just like when a stupid person from the South-South insists that a Northerner has no right to comment on the militancy and kidnapping going on in their creeks.
I am a full blooded and proud Northern Muslim. I am on the side of truth. I make bold to swear that I have no intention nor do I have the link to profit from the settlement funds. All I want is for the patients to get their rightful dues and for the healthcare funds to be applied transparently. May anyone who intends to steal from the poor patients be decisively dealt with by Almighty Allah Himself. As we are not doing this discourse in Hausa but in English, I want to conclude with the English translation (Abdullah Yusufali) of the greatest book of revelation, the Holy Quran, Surah 101:
The Calamity, The Stunning Blow, The Disaster
1. The (Day) of Noise and Clamour:
2. What is the (Day) of Noise and Clamour?
3. And what will explain to thee what the (Day) of Noise and Clamour is?
4. (It is) a Day whereon men will be like moths scattered about,
5. And the mountains will be like carded wool.
6. Then, he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) heavy,
7. Will be in a life of good pleasure and satisfaction.
8. But he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) light,-
9. Will have his home in a (bottomless) Pit.
10. And what will explain to thee what this is?
11. (It is) a Fire Blazing fiercely!