According to All Africa, Dr. Dogunro, a former medical director of Pfizer Inc, has been arrested by the police and the managing director for Pfizer Nigeria, Ms Ngozi Oluwatoyin Edozien (left) is on the run.
A federal High Court in Abuja, Nigeria issued the warrant for the arrest of eight former directors of Pfizer Nigeria.
Those affected were directors on the board of Pfizer Nigeria when the controversial Trovan clinical trial took place in Kano in which over 200 persons, mostly children, died allegedly as a result of the unapproved trial.
Among the eight directors are former Pfizer CEO William Steere, Samuel Ohuabunwa, A.Dogunro, Isa Dutse , Scott Hopkins, Mike Dunne, Debra Williams and Robert Buhl.
It is common among multinational corporations for the CEO to also be a director of each foreign subsidiary, which also results in certain legal responsibilities, and this is how the high-profile Mr. Steere was pulled into this criminal matter.
Pfizer's Managing Director Ngozi, who is now on the run, is also Regional Director East, Central, and Anglo-lusophone (ECAWA) in Africa. She was born in Nigeria but grew up in the U.S. and went to Harvard Business School.
She then became a McKinsey consultant and worked in the UK and France. After McKinsey she spent about five years as a Pfizer Vice President in New York, responsible for planning and business development.
She told the Sun News, "At a certain point in time in the company, we carried out a research, trying to understand the position of Pfizer in Africa and the Middle East, where we have greater opportunities and the company reached a decision that we really needed to re-enforce our business in Africa and the Middle East. And they said you have done it in planning and business development, but you need to do more and we believe in you so much, why not go and do it. So, here I am [in Nigeria]."
Ms. Ngozi probably didn't expect that her Pfizer employment would result in criminal charges.
Corporate headquarters of Pfizer in Lagos have now been shut down, and its management staff has refused to show up, afraid of arrest.
Both the federal and Kano State governments have instituted criminal charges against Pfizer over its alleged role in the deaths of the children who received the drug during a meningitis epidemic in 1996.
Nigeria has sued Pfizer for over $8.5 billion, alleging the U.S. drug company caused the death of Nigerian children when it conducted a clinical trial in the country.
Trovan came to public disclosure in 2000 when The Washington Post published the result of a year-long investigation into pharmaceutical testing in the developing world.
This resulted in Nigerians demonstrating in the streets and demanding an investigation.
Pfizer is currently contesting the case, and is trying to quash an investigation committee report which faults Pfizer. Pfizer insists the company is innocent.
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