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Fresh row over Kano Trovan Case as group alleges
blackmail
Newsdiaryonline Fri Sep 16,2011
Kano State Gov:Rabiu
Kwankwaso
A civil society group, the Proletarian Agenda, has expressed
displeasure at recent reports that the lawyers of the Trovan
Victims Forum (TVF) are threatening to go back to court to
reopen the settled Trovan case in respect of the 1996 trials
during the meningitis epidemic in Kano.
In a statement signed by
Mallam Umar Sani,its national coordinator,the Proletarian Agenda
notes that the TVF’s cases were settled out of court before
their members agreed to be DNA-tested. Indeed, the TVF was
responsible for the delay in the DNA process because the body
obtained a court injunction to stop it.
In what may
amount to a fresh row over the Trovan case, the
Proletarian Agenda(PA) is accusing TVF members of
receiving financial gratifications before withdrawing its
case from court earlier.According to Sani, investigations
carried out by our associates in the civil society movement
showed that the 192 TVF members were compensated to the tune of
$5,000 each before they agreed to withdraw their cases from
court. Now, with the rumour that only six out of the 192 TVF
members were DNA-matched with actual participants in the Trovan
study, the other pretenders and impostors are being egged on by
their greedy sponsors to muddy the waters all over again by
casting aspersions on the scientific DNA process and going back
to court.
Specifically PA said, “We
insist that even among thieves there must be honour. The TVF
lawyers’ fees were settled along with the TVF member’s payment.
It is scandalous that a body would willingly give an undertaking
after collecting money and then turn round to repudiate its
agreement. We dare the TVF lawyers and members to deny that they
have collected money before withdrawing their case from court.
In the statement today Sani called
on “the Meningitis Board not to succumb to blackmail. Only those
certified through the agreed processes should be compensated.
The TVF is scared that at the end of the day, if only six out of
their 192 members pass the test, it would have been
scientifically exposed as a 419 body that tried to obtain
compensation under false pretences.
According to the Proletarian Agenda, “some people don’t want the
so-called Trovan saga to ever come to an end. They must be
stopped in their tracks. We call on the Kano State Government to
be cautious about being used to derail the compensation
programme because we know that those behind this attempted scam
of claiming compensation for fake victims would stop at nothing
to satiate their greed.”
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