LAGOS, Nov 6 (AFP) - The 10-year exile of former Liberian warlord Yormie Johnson, who had president Samuel Doe tortured to death, may be coming to an end, he said Wednesday. Speaking to AFP at his modest Lagos house, Johnson said he wanted one day to become president of his country "through democratic means" but was not yet ready to leave Nigeria. "I do not want to go to any country in Africa. I beg Nigeria not to send me away. I am not safe if I am on my own," he said, claiming that the Nigerian government had told him it was time to go. "Forcing me to leave will not be in the interest of Nigeria or West Africa, " the 50-year-old born again Christian warned. Johnson's forces, then allied to those of current Liberian ruler Charles Taylor, captured Doe, a brutal dictator, in September 1990. Doe was taken to Johnson's headquarters, where his own savage mutilation was recorded on video and he was put to death. "I asked him to explain what he did with Liberian money. I also asked him why he played deaf to the cries of Liberians," Johnson said, in a graphic account of Doe's final minutes. "Since he played deaf, he had no reason to have ear lobes again. His ear lobes were then cut off for him to chew. He was tied down during all this period and he was in pain." Doe's death paved the way for an interim government to take power and Nigerian peacekeepers from the west African ECOMOG force began the job of disarming Johnson's faction. In Liberia, however, outbreaks of peace often prove shortlived. Fighting in the early 1990s left 150,000 dead and brought Taylor to power. Now, the new strongman is fighting a new generation of rebels. But in 1992 Johnson found himself plucked from the mayhem by Nigerian peacekeepers, who flew him to exile. "I was brought by ECOMOG on November 9, 1992 to create room for peace in Liberia. I do not know if I was a problem. I did not come to Nigeria begging anybody for a place to stay," he said. "There was then no government in Liberia that was after my life," he said. "I had removed Samuel Doe from power, installed Professor Amos Sawyer as interim president and disarmed." Since then Johnson has lived an apparently peaceful life with his ten-strong family in Ikoyi, an upmarket suburb of Lagos, under the protection of successive Nigerian military governments. But after Nigeria's 1999 return to civilian rule, his position became more precarious. In 2000 President Olusegun Obasanjo first cut off his privileges, forcing him to pay for his own water and electricity, then, recently, asked him to leave the country, Johnson said. Since coming to Nigeria, Johnson has "found God" and been ordained as a pentecostalist pastor. The one-time warlord insists he will not bring more bloodshed to Liberia, but will work for peace. "When the man of God like me is in politics, there will be righteousness," he said. "I am interested in reconciliation ... I don't not want to be involved in any conflict in Liberia." Despite his recent conversion to democratic politics, Johnson expresses no regrets about his brutal treatment of Doe, whom he accused of leading a tyrannical regime. "Doe had also cut out the heart of Liberia's former army chief General Thomas Quawonkpa and ate it in 1985," he claimed. But he is sorry that his action allowed Taylor's rise to power. "I am a revolutionary. I fought for a cause that I do not see happening. I regret having removed Doe to see that monster on the throne," he said. Johnson broke away from Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the rebel group which started the war in December 1989, after Doe's death. He said that Togolese President Gnassingbe Eyadema had invited the former comrades-in-arms to Lome twice between 1995 and 1996 and tried in vain to reconcile them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~