Godwin Tsa, Abuja

A Professor of Law and former Director General of the Nigeria Institute of Advance Legal Studies (NIALS), Prof. Epiphany Azinge (SAN) has adduced reasons why he led a consortium of legal experts to file a $200 billion class-action suit against the Peoples Republic of China over the effects of the coronavirus pandemic effect on Nigerians. 

In the said suit currently pending before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, the  claimants are demanding $200 billion as damages for the “loss of lives, economic strangulation, trauma, hardship, social disorientation, mental torture and disruption of normal daily existence of people in Nigeria.”
Others joined as defendants are the Communist Party of China; the Minister of Justice China; Minister in charge of the National Health commission; National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China;  Chinese Academy of Sciences;  Wuhan Institute of Virology and Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
Azinge whose law firm is championing the action as the lead counsel has however lamented that the Chinese government has refused to accept the court summons on the matter including it’s Embassy in Nigeria.
 
Regardless, the current current member of the Commonwealth Arbitral Tribunal London, representing Nigeria and Africa, told Daily Sun that the are confident to get justice at the end of the day.
“We view with a lot of regrets, the pattern of events, we researched into the happenings in WUHAN Institute of Virology and we followed the whole process of the interaction between China and World Health Organization (WHO) at different times and we came to this inescapable conclusions that China did not do what they were supposed to do at the right time.
” And there were a lot of non disclosure of information and they were negligent in the way and manner they handle the issue and they allowed the virus to also spread to other parts of the world because they do not lockdown WUHAN when they were supposed to.
” Having viewed all these, and coming to this inescapable conclusions that Nigeria was badly affected by that negligent conduct on the part of China, and also bearing in mind, that pandemic is still very much with us and instead of abating, it is still spiking the more, that we have suffered incalculable loss, including deaths, among other inflictions, we opted for going to court.

” We believe seriously in the merit of the action and hopefully, it’s a class action that we are doing which is all encompassing. We have refused to bring the Government of Nigeria into focus because we wouldn’t want a situation where China will feel that we are either engineered or sponsored by the Federal government. There is nothing like that, we are just working on our own. If it works fine, if it doesn’t, its okay, that is how we develop our jurisprudence. It will go on record that we tried to promote international customary law as it relates to domestic municipal courts.”

Among other reliefs, the claimants are seeking “a declaration that the defendants were negligent in their handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and breached their duty of care owed to the Claimants and other members of the class thereof, resulting in untold hardship, death, loss of livelihood and disruption of socio-economic activities. 

“A declaration that the defendants handling of the Covid-19 outbreak violated the Claimants’ humanitarian rights guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, resulting in social exclusion, loss of human dignity psychological trauma and social deprivations.

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“A declaration that the Defendants’ actions in wilfully allowing the escape and spread of coronavirus (Covid 19) constituted nuisance and interfered with the Claimants right to enjoy comfort and convenience and has endangered the lives, and health of the public in general.

“A declaration that the Defendants on account of its polluting activities are liable to be held responsible for the outbreak of Covid-19 under trans-boundary environmental law.

An award of the sum of US$200, 000, 000, 000 (Two hundred billion United States U.S. Dollars only or its naira equivalent) as General damages for the Defendants acts of negligence, nuisance, breach of environmental and humanitarian rights which occasioned on the Claimants and other members of the class, illness, death, loss of employment and significant economic damages.