The Significance of Prince Harry And Meghan Markle’s Visit To Nigeria

By Moji Danisa

As Prince Harry commemorates 10 years of the UK Invictus Games, he is expected to visit Nigeria with his wife, Duchess Meghan Markle.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will make their inaugural visit to Nigeria, and they are set to meet with the Defence Ministry, ex-service personnel, amidst an array of other activities, including cultural events.

Prince Harry is the founder of the Invictus Games, a yearly event for wounded, injured, and sick service personnel.

There is no doubt that Prince Harry’s dedication has profoundly shaped the Invictus Games. The game is an international multi-sports event which attracts over 500 competitors from 22 nations, as well as over 1,000 family members and friends who attend the landmark activity.

The Invictus Games took place in London in 2014, Orlando, USA, in 2016, Toronto, Canada, in 2017, Sydney, Australia, in 2018, The Hague in 2022, and Dusseldorf in 2023.

During their historic visit to Nigeria, Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan will engage with service members and partake in cultural activities.

Given Meghan Markle’s Nigerian heritage (45%), some Nigerians are already joking, asking that Prince Harry pays her traditional bride price during their stay in the country.

Meanwhile, the month of May marks many milestones for the Sussexes!

Their first son, Archie, turns 5.

The Sussexes will also mark their 6th wedding anniversary in May.

It should be recalled that Africa holds a pride of place in the Prince’s heart as it was in Africa where he rediscovered himself years after the painful demise of his mother, Diana, the Princess of Wales.

The young Harry continued his work caring for children who had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS in Botswana.

The Prince and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho founded Sentebale, a charity organisation that helps children and adolescents struggling to come to terms with their HIV and AIDS diagnosis.

In November 2015, Prince Harry, who was in his early twenties, significantly contributed to and attended the official opening of the Mamohato Children’s Centre, a flagship facility that supports all of Sentebale’s work with vulnerable children in Lesotho.

Prince Harry has reportedly been very generous with his funds and donated $1.5 million (£1.2 million) to help grow his own global development charity. Sentebale grew by more than 50 percent by 2022 after raising $5.5 million (£4.5 million).

After relocating to the United States, the Prince and his equally devoted wife formed the Archewell Foundation.

The foundation, which aims to “uplift and unite communities, both local and global, online and offline,” according to its website, disclosed in a tax filing on Tuesday that the non-profit organisation received just over $2 million in charitable contributions in 2022.

However, there are reports that an anonymous donor directed $10 million to the Archewell nonprofit via the powerful, Mountain View-based Silicon Valley Community Foundation, sometime in the past years.

Before meeting Harry, Meghan Markle was a UN Ambassador who was and is still very vocal about women and children’s rights. Markle went on a humanitarian mission to Rwanda in 2016 where she spent weeks in a village, with the locals and helped build a well after finding out that lack of clean water was keeping girls out of school.

Nigeria will benefit greatly from the Sussexes’ visit, especially in the area of collaboration in humanitarian projects for its ex-service men, via the Invictus Game and other areas needing charitable funding.