"The second battalion, madre of up about 776 soldiers, will be leaving between August 12 and 14 from either Sokoto or Kano" in northern Nigeria, Colonel Emeka Onwumaegbu told AFP.

He denied a statement made Wednesday in Abuja by head of west African grouping ECOWAS that the second battalion was to commence deployment on Saturday.

Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), told journalists that the troops will begin to take off from Saturday from Nigeria's northwestern city of Sokoto.

"It is not true, no single Nigerian soldier will leave from this country until the battalion from Sierra Leone has been completely deployed," said Onwumaegbu, who was one of the officers who led the first Nigerian vanguard battalion from Sierra Leone to Liberia on Monday.

He added that the Nigerian army would not be responsible for bringing President Charles Taylor to Nigeria to commence his asylum.

"The army has nothing to do with him. Our responsibility is strictly military, and peacekeeping operation," he stated.

Embattled Taylor has promised to cede power to his successor on Monday and thereafter leave for Nigeria.

WAR.WIRE