‘I risked my life for peace’ — Goodluck Jonathan reveals the dangerous move he made for Niger Delta

• Goodluck Jonathan said he entered a Niger Delta militant camp without weapons while serving as vice president.

• He ignored security advice in a bid to build trust and advance peace talks.

• Jonathan said the meeting paved the way for the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme.

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has revealed that he put his life on the line during negotiations with Niger Delta militants while serving as vice president, describing the decision as one of the most consequential of his political career.

Jonathan made the disclosure on Monday while delivering the chairman's address at the De Mangrove Conversation in Yenagoa, an event organised in collaboration with the Bayelsa State Government, the Niger Delta Development Commission, and other stakeholders.

He said that as vice president, he was tasked with leading peace negotiations with militant groups that had been disrupting oil facilities across the Niger Delta, and that he resolved to visit their camps personally to build the trust necessary for dialogue.

When militants sent word that they were willing to receive him but would not tolerate any armed escorts, Jonathan said he agreed to their terms despite fierce objections from his security detail.

The Commissioner of Police in Delta State told him he could not go. The State Director of the State Security Service told him the same, but he went anyway.

"There must be peace and development in the Niger Delta," he said.

He ordered everyone in uniform to stay behind, instructing only his Chief Security Officer and Aide-de-Camp to accompany him and directed both men to surrender their weapons to state security officials before entering the camp.

"I told them if we come back alive, you get your guns back and we will go back to Abuja," he said.

What greeted him at the camp was a corridor of armed young men, lined up in two rows on either side with assorted rifles, through which Jonathan and his unarmed aides walked to reach the negotiation point. The meeting lasted approximately one and a half hours.

Jonathan said the outcome of that meeting set in motion a chain of events that led directly to the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme, which granted pardons to militants who surrendered their weapons and remains active to this day.

He described the engagement as the foundation of the relative peace the region has experienced since, arguing that the willingness to show up without weapons sent a message that dialogue, not force, was the government's true intention.

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Jonathan also spoke about his personal connection to the Niger Delta, recalling how he grew up watching oil facilities develop near his community in Bayelsa State and later worked as an environmental scientist studying the impact of oil exploration across the region before entering politics.

He stressed that lasting peace in the Niger Delta depends on addressing decades of environmental degradation and neglect, describing the region's development as a national priority that successive governments must take seriously.