General Butt Naked

Joshua Milton Blahyi (born 30 September 1971), better known by his nom de guerre General Butt Naked, is a Liberian preacher and philanthropist best known for being a warlord during the First Liberian Civil War. Born in Monrovia into a Krahn family, Blahyi claims that at the age of seven he was inducted as a priest into a secret society and participated in child sacrifices, though his relatives dispute this and claim he instead dropped out of school after the third grade and worked at a local market before turning to crime. In 1989, civil war broke out after the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) invaded Liberia to topple President Samuel Doe, who was murdered in 1990, though his death did not end the war.

In c. 1993, Blahyi joined the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), which had been formed in 1991 and fought against the NPFL. He raised his own militia of mostly child fighters known as the "Naked Base Commandos", and became known for going into combat wearing no clothing, which led to him adopting his nom de guerre. In 1994, ULIMO split into the rival ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J, and Blahyi backed the latter faction, resisting an attempt by the NPFL and ULIMO-K to arrest its leader Roosevelt Johnson in April 1996. Blahyi claimed to have experienced a vision of Jesus in July 1996 and abandoned his unit, turning to street preaching; in 1997, the war ended and NPFL leader Charles Taylor was elected president of Liberia.

Blahyi fled to Ghana in 1999 to escape persecution by Taylor's administration. There, Blahyi learned to read and write and began delivering sermons, founding a ministry and rehabilitation programme. He returned to Liberia in January 2008 to testify before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, becoming the first former Liberian warlord to do so. His testimony sparked mixed reactions among the Liberian public but resulted in Blahyi achieving global fame, being featured in several documentaries and inspiring a character in the 2011 musical comedy The Book of Mormon. Many of Blahyi's claims about his life and rehabilitation programme have come under scrutiny, in particular the number of deaths he was responsible for during the war.