Posted by Frank James at 11:55 a.m. CST

President Bush was saved from having to make a ticklish decision this morning about whether to go through with his scheduled meeting with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo by the arrest of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president and warlord.

Taylor “disappeared” from the Nigerian city where he had been living in exile following reports that Nigeria had agreed to hand him over to United Nations forces. The U.N. was to turn him over to a war-crimes tribunal in Sierra Leone for his alleged role in atrocities against the population committed by fighters aligned with him.

What made the decision tricky was Nigeria’s position as a leading oil exporter. In 2004, it exported 2.19 billion barrels of oil a day, according to data from the Energy Information Administration, part of the Energy Department. That makes Nigeria the number eight exporter behind Kuwait.

Nigeria also currently has the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC. The conference is the organization’s decision-making body.

So Nigeria wasn’t exactly without some leverage over a nation “addicted to oil” as Bush described the U.S. in his State of the Union speech. While not in a league with Saudi Arabia or Russia who export far more oil, it shares some of their ability to thumb its nose at the U.S.

Still, the White House had to play the hand it had and that was the scheduled meeting with the president. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was asked yesterday whether today’s meeting between Bush and Obasanjo would continue as scheduled, his answer was far from an unequivocal yes.

“Well, right now we are looking for answers from the Nigerian government about the whereabouts of Charles Taylor,” he said, allowing journalists and, more importantly, the Nigerians to speculate that the meeting’s status was up in the air.

It was a way for the White House to raise pressure on the Nigerian government to find Taylor. The Nigerian president appeared to be facing the embarrassment of having his meeting cancelled.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applied more pressure yesterday. When Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said the White House should consider cancelling the meeting, she didn’t give the Nigerians any cause for comfort.

“The Nigerians indeed did take Charles Taylor at the behest of the international community,” she said. “But I think there was an understanding that he would be monitored, and that he would be at some point -- President Obasanjo said, when there was a Liberian government -- turned over for prosecution by the court.

“And we were on course for that. If we are no longer on course for that, then we will have to examine why this happened and have consequences accordingly,” she said.

Nigeria had received international criticism since 2003 for seemingly coddling Taylor who by some estimates may be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of more than a million people.

Lo and behold, Nigerian police arrested Taylor today as he tried to cross over that country’s border with Cameroon and Chad in a Jeep with diplomatic license plates. According to reports, Taylor was accompanied by a woman, a small child and a trunk full of cash.

Taylor’s arrest allowed the White House meeting to occur this morning as planned.

When reporters and photographers were allowed into the Oval Office, Bush ticked off a few areas the two presidents discussed—Darfur and energy.

“Finally,” he said “I appreciate the decision he made regarding Charles Taylor. In my visit last week with the president of Liberia, we talked about Charles Taylor.

“The fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia and is a signal, Mr. President, of your deep desire for there to be peace in your neighborhood,” Bush said.

It was now the Nigerian president’s turn. “The area that I will call the area of concern, by the time I arrived here last night seem to have been finally dealt with by this morning, particularly the issue of Charles Taylor.

“And as I said to you about two minutes ago,” he said to Bush “Charles Taylor should be landing in Liberia by now, which should -- that would end the issue of Charles Taylor behind all of us.

“I appreciate the understanding of everybody and the way that this issue has been handled,” Obasanjo said. “I met the press earlier on today to actually give what was our own position, and how we were hoping to deal with the issue of Charles Taylor's disappearance.

“And of course I do not agree, I must say to you, that we are -- we have been negligent in the way we handled the Charles Taylor issue. If we have been negligent, then Charles Taylor will have got away. He will not have been arrested if there's connivance or condonation on our part.”