The Prohibition of Torture and Ill-treatment in the African Human Rights System: A HANDBOOK FOR VICTIMS AND THEIR ADVOCATES In Abubakar v. Ghana,374 the Commission found that it was not ‘logical’ to require the exhaustion of local remedies where a person had fled the country. In this case, Abubakar escaped from prison in Ghana in 1992, where he had been held as a political detainee without trial since 1985, and fled to neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. Finding that the facts revealed a violation of his rights, the Commission in its 1996 finding took the ‘nature of the complaint’ as a guiding principle in concluding that it would not be ‘logical to ask the complainant to go back to Ghana in order to seek a remedy from national legal authorities’.375 In a subsequent case, Rights International v. Nigeria,376 finalised in 1999, a person fleeing the dictatorship in Nigeria was eventually accorded refugee status in the USA. As he took to flight for fear of his life, the person was not required to return to Nigeria in order to exhaust local remedies. At the Commission’s 27th Session, held in October 2000, three further cases concerning this question were finalised. In two of them, the Commission followed the line of argument established in previous cases. In one case, Sir Dawda K. Jawara,377 a previous head of State submitted a complaint related to his deposition and events following the coup d’état that removed him from power. Finding that the complainant did not need to exhaust domestic remedies in The Gambia, the Commission observed that it would be an affront to logic and common sense to require the ex-President to risk his life to return to The Gambia. In the other case, Kazeem Aminu v. Nigeria,378 the complainant’s fear of his life also motivated a finding that it would not be proper to require him to ensure that local remedies had been exhausted. In the third case, Legal Defence Centre v. The Gambia,379 the Commission seems to have deviated from its own jurisprudential approach, without justification. In this case, the Commission required exhaustion of local remedies by a complainant in a situation analogous to those just discussed. The complainant was a Nigerian journalist, based in The Gambia, who was ordered to leave The Gambia after his reporting caused embarrassment to the Nigerian Government. Ostensibly, the journalist was deported to ‘face trials for crimes he committed in Nigeria’. His deportation took place within a very short time, and he had no opportunity to challenge his deportation. On arrival in Nigeria, he was not arrested or prosecuted. Despite the 374 ACHPR, Abubakar v. Ghana, Comm. No. 103/93, 20th Ordinary Session (31 October 1996). 375 Ibid., para. 6. 376 ACHPR, Rights International v. Nigeria, Comm. No. 215/98, 215/98, 26th Ordinary Session (15 November 1999). 377 ACHPR, Sir Dawda K. Jawara v. The Gambia, Comm. Nos. 147/95 & 149/96. 378 ACHPR, Kazeem Aminu v. Nigeria, Comm. No. 205/97. 379 ACHPR, Legal Defence Centre v. The Gambia, Comm. No. 219/98, 27th Ordinary Session (11 May 2000). 90