Maybe. The lawsuit filed by the Kano state government in Nigeria against Pfizer, you may recall, demanded $2 billion in compensation for an allegedly illegal trial of its Trovan meningitis drug, which was administered to about 200 children during a 1996 epidemic of measles, cholera and meningitis that claimed 30,000 lives. This Day reports that a $50 million settlement is under way.

However, the negotiations appear to be complicated by a fictitious list of victims making the rounds, according to the paper, which writes that “local politicians and influential people in the ancient city are playing gimmicks…and that some local government councils are being accused of assembling deformed people in their localities and posing them as victims of the Trovan trial.”

For instance, a number of victims on the list of a former television broadcaster, who has been posing as the chairman of the Trovan victims, were actually born with various forms of deformities, years before the Pfizer test took place twelve years ago.

Another hitch: reports have put the number of people that participated in the trial at about 200, with many either having died or suffered various deformities. However, in the criminal complaint filed by the Kano State government, the authorities cited 57 names, which suggests that about 143 supposed victims are not actually victims.