Prince Harry and his wife Meghan concluded their three-day journey to Nigeria on Sunday, landing in the country’s commercial center, Lagos, to promote his Invictus Games for wounded military veterans.
The Duke of Sussex and his wife landed in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, on Friday to attend a mental health school event. The prince also met wounded Nigerian soldiers in the country’s northwest.
On the third day of their tour, Prince Harry and Meghan participated in a basketball event with the Giants of Africa Foundation in Lagos, an organization that helps adolescents via sports participation.
The prince tried dribbling basketballs with children at the foundation’s demonstration event, which is led by Masai Ujiri, the vice-president of an NBA franchise.
“The power of sports can change lives, it brings people together and creates community and there are no barriers which is the most important thing,” the prince said.
Harry, a former army captain who flew helicopters in Afghanistan, founded the Invictus Games 10 years ago to help bring wounded veterans into sporting events to aid with their recuperation.
The couple later met with Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and were also set to take part in a Lagos fundraiser.
“He has seen a lot and is still soaking in a whole lot,” the governor said of the prince’s experience of Nigeria.
Nigerian heritage
On Friday afternoon, Meghan attended a women in leadership event with Nigerian-born World Trade Organization director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, where she addressed her Nigerian origin and her position as a role model for women.
“I want to start by saying thank you very much for just how gracious you’ve all been in welcoming my husband and I to this country,” she said to applause, before adding, “my country”.
“It’s been really eye-opening and humbling to be able to know more about my heritage and to be able to know, this is just the beginning of that discovery.”
In Abuja, the prince also participated in a seated volleyball match with Nigerian veterans, some of whom had lost limbs in action in the country’s north, where military are fighting Islamists and heavily armed criminal groups.
Peacemaker Azuegbulam, a former Nigerian soldier who lost his leg in war in the northeast and became the first African to win gold at the Invictus Games in Germany last year, played on Duke’s volleyball team.
Before visiting Nigeria, Prince Harry was in London on Wednesday to commemorate the games’ tenth anniversary.
His excursions to the United Kingdom after moving to the United States in 2020 have sparked renewed conjecture about a possible reconciliation with his family. However, he did not meet with his father, King Charles, during this journey.
Nigerian security troops are fighting armed groups on multiple fronts.
Since 2009, a protracted Islamist insurgency in the northeast has killed over 40,000 people and displaced another two million. Militants have been pushed back from their former strongholds, but they continue to strike convoys with roadside bombs.
In the northwest and central states, heavily armed criminal bands known as bandits conduct large kidnappings for ransom and raid villages from camps hidden deep in distant forests.
