A UN-backed Special Tribunal, which is seeking to prosecute Taylor for crimes against humanity, urged Nigeria to take all necessary steps to prevent him from fleeing.
Speaking from Sierra Leone, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, Desmond Da Silva, said that there could be grave consequences to the stability of the region if Taylor was not turned over.
"The watching world will wish to see Taylor held in Nigerian detention to avoid the possibility of him using his wealth and associates to slip away," he said.
Nigeria’s pledge
On Saturday Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo said Saturday that he would allow his Liberian counterpart, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to take custody of her predecessor.
Nigerian officials on Sunday, would not return calls inquiring about Taylor's case, and a senior aide to the former president told AFP by telephone from the villa in the city of Calabar that the situation there was unchanged.
The Nigerian government had yet to outline exactly how it would removed Taylor from his luxury villa in the country’s southeast and extradite him either to Liberia or to a war crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone.
A group director of Human Rights Watch, Richard Dicker, has backed the UN’s call. "Nigeria must ensure that Taylor is not permitted to flee from justice and the international community must ensure that security in Liberia is maintained during this process," he said.
"It would be a disgrace if Nigeria allowed Taylor to flee." said said Mr Dicker.
Claims of abuses
Taylor is accused of masterminding a policy of murder, torture, pillage and rape in the 1990s in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone.
In August 2003, in a bid to bring an end to a brutal civil war, Mr Obasanjo invited him to step down as president, leave his besieged capital Monrovia and accept political asylum in Nigeria.
But the Nigerian leader has since come under pressure, notably from the United States, to send Taylor home.