"We have accepted it," said Taylor after an emergency meeting with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo at Monrovia's Robertsfield airport.
Obasanjo said moments earlier that "we have extended an invitation to President Charles Taylor... he has not hesitated to accept". That offer included "safe haven in Nigeria".
The Nigerian leader, whose country has played a leading role in trying to resolve the Liberian conflict, said his invitation was a "necessary gesture for peace" but warned that he would "not accept to be harrassed by anybody or any organisation for inviting Charles Taylor to Nigeria".
Taylor, who currently controls only one-fifth of his war-torn country and whose capital is ringed by rebel forces, said the important thing now was to ensure an "orderly" exit.
Nigeria had earlier given asylum to two players in an earlier seven-year civil war, which was started by Taylor.
That conflict ended with Taylor's election to power in 1997.
The asylum offer came amid growing calls for Taylor to step down to end the civil war in Liberia which pits Taylor's government against two rebel movements and has left thousands dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
US President George W Bush on Saturday repeated that Taylor would have to go to bring peace to the anarchic nation of about 3,3-million people, founded by freed African-American slaves in the 19th century.
The Liberian leader has been under UN sanctions, including an arms embargo, for his alleged support to former rebels in Sierra Leone during that neighbouring country's brutal 10-year war in which up to 250 000 were killed.
He has also been indicted for war crimes in Sierra Leone by a UN-mandated court.
He is accused of arming and backing the erstwhile Revolutionary United Front rebel movement in return for the so-called "conflict diamonds" mined by them.
Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States regional bloc, last month managed to bring Taylor and the rebels to the negotiating table to agree a shaky ceasefire on June 17, but the truce was shattered almost immediately.
Taylor also reneged on an agreement to step down to make way for a transitional government.
As an unsteady calm holds in Monrovia, pressure is mounting on Washington to lead the peacekeeping mission to Liberia.
A team of US military experts was due to leave for Liberia yesterday on a reconnaissance mission to prepare for a possible US humanitarian operation in the war-torn country, a US army spokesperson said in Germany.
Taylor earlier said he would leave only when US peacekeepers are in place. - Sapa-AFP.
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