Prince Harry and Meghan's private African trip turns into an unofficial royal tour
It is a private trip that has quickly become a royal tour in all but name.
Prince Harry and his wife Meghan kicked off their three-day visit to Nigeria yesterday and were mobbed by hundreds of well-wishers in the country's capital, Abuja.
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Meghan, with longer hair, even wore an eye-catching backless dress by US designer Heidi Merrick called The Windsor.
Pic: REX
Harry and Meghan landed after flying first class on a British Airways flight overnight that had been briefly held up when the planned captain reported sick.
Landing just before dawn after a six-hour flight, other passengers were held back as the couple disembarked.
The prince had been in London since Tuesday for Invictus Games anniversary events but did not meet his father or brother.
Pic: REX
Nigeria is listed as the ninth most dangerous country in Africa. Just hours before Harry and Meghan arrived, armed kidnappers abducted dozens of students in a raid at the Kogi State University of Science and Technology, 320 kilometres south of Abuja in Anyigba.
The couple's visit comes almost 34 years to the day after Harry's parents visited. Back then Diana famously held the hands of a leprosy patient. The current trip is primarily to promote Harry's commitment to his Invictus Games initiative for wounded military personnel.
However, they are in Nigeria at the invitation of the country's chief of defence staff General Christopher Musa and are being accompanied by heavy security in scenes that heavily echo a foreign royal tour.
Pic: REX
Their first engagement was at the Lightway Academy, a school that receives funding from their Archewell Foundation, founded by the Sussexes.
As they opened a mental health summit organised by local nonprofit GEANCO, which partners with their foundation, they received a rapturous welcome from a dancing troupe and excited pupils and teachers.
Harry, in a linen shirt and trousers and like Meghan wearing a traditional Nigerian bead necklace, said: 'In some cases around the world... there is a stigma when it comes to mental health.
Pic: REX
'Too many people don't want to talk about it, so will you promise to us that after today, no more being scared, no more being unsure of mental health?'
As he finished, Meghan said: 'You see why I'm married to him? He's so smart. And so inspiring because he speaks the truth.'
Their meeting with General Musa at the Defence Headquarters was preceded with a tenvehicle military convoy of armoured cars with mounted machine guns and masked soldiers carrying grenade launchers. The British Foreign Office advises against 'all but essential travel to Nigeria'.
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Pic: Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
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