On October 11, Liberia will hold elections. The country is mired in poverty, the electorate is largely illiterate, but despite a few problems, elections look set to happen without too much chaos next week. Liberia sure has come a long way since the days of General Butt Naked.

Who the hell is that? Ahha, you haven’t heard of General Butt Naked! Liberia produced the most outrageously wild characters in its decade of war: General No-Mother-No-Father, General Peanut Butter, General Fuck-Me-Quick, General Dragon Master, General Housebreaker, and perhaps the most famous, General Butt Naked. This guy was particularly… erm… “visible.” He fought stripped to the buff save a pair of tennis shoes and a kalishnikov. Read a PG-13 rated version account of his drugged youth army here. I’ll give you a more brutal narrative of his work below.

Most of the aforementioned generals met a sticky end, but not General Butt Naked. Today, he’s found a more reputable line of work as a preacher. Yes, preaching the word of God on Broad Street in Monrovia is the Reverend Joshua Milton Blahyi.

The reverend is pretty honest about his former line of work. Just listen to this article recounting the general’s past:

He admitted to killing and ordering the killings of over 10,000 people and eating the hearts of some of his victims to solidify his charms and to fulfill the rules of his rituals… He said parts extracted from his victims were then sold on demand to traditional voodoo and witch doctors, who would in turn produce the necessary charms that were sold out to people who were seeking higher and public offices in Liberia.

Speaking of his reason to change careers, here’s what the now retired general had to say:

So, before leading my troops into battle, we would get drunk and drugged up, sacrifice a local teenager, drink their blood, then strip down to our shoes and go into battle wearing colourful wigs and carrying dainty purses we’d looted from civilians. We’d slaughter anyone we saw, chop their heads off and use them as soccer balls. We were nude, fearless, drunk and homicidal. We killed hundreds of people – so many I lost count. But in June last year God telephoned me and told me that I was not the hero I considered myself to be, so I stopped and became a preacher.

Maybe there’s hope for Africa after all.

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