RICHARD EDEN: Instead of pretending to be royals in Nigeria, Harry and Meghan should address the scandal they're embroiled in elsewhere in Africa...

Seeming, once again, to present themselves as an alternative royal family, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will undertake a very regal visit to Nigeria next week.

Invited by the West African nation’s highest-ranking military official, the Chief of Defence Staff, Prince Harry and Meghan are guaranteed to receive the sort of security which they expected British taxpayers to provide.

Harry, you might recall, sought a judicial review of the Home Office’s decision to strip him, Meghan, and their children, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, of their automatic right to police security in Britain after they chose to quit royal duties and seek their fortune across the Atlantic.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their royal tour in South Africa in 2019

King Charles’s younger son lost the case in February, with the action estimated to have cost him about £1million, including his own legal costs and those due to the Home Office.

There will be no such worries for Harry and Meghan next week, when the security tab will be paid by the government of Nigeria, a country where an estimated 87million people live below the poverty line.

Why are they making the trip? It seems the Duke struck up a conversation with defence chief General Christopher Gwabin Musa, during September’s Invictus Games in Dusseldorf.

No one is challenging the good work of the Games, Harry’s Paralympics-style venture for wounded servicemen and women, which are a subject scheduled for discussion on the Nigeria trip.

No doubt the visit will be good for Brand Sussex, too, and will highlight what the couple could have achieved for the Commonwealth had they stuck with the Windsors.

The Sussexes had been given key roles working with young people through the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust before they decided to step back from royal duties.

But I do wonder if Harry’s time in Africa could be better spent addressing a scandal at a charity hit with allegations of abuse.

African Parks, a conservation charity of which he is a director, is facing further accusations of human rights abuses that include extra-judicial killings and violent beatings.

Claims of brutality by rangers who are jointly managed by the charity first emerged in January, when a front-page report in The Mail on Sunday revealed claims that armed guards had beaten, raped and tortured Baka tribal people in the Republic of the Congo.

The charity, which manages reserves in 12 African countries – although not Nigeria – is a considerable enterprise.

Claiming that it saves wildlife by working with local communities, African Parks helps manage 1,400 guards patrolling protected land almost the size of Britain.

Harry, who was the president for six years until he joined the governing board of directors last year, has been effusive in his praise, saying previously: ‘The African Parks model is exactly what conservation should be about – putting people at the heart of the solution.’

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle take selfies with fans during the Invictus Games Dusseldorf in Germany last September, where they struck up a conversation with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa

But in March, The Mail on Sunday uncovered fresh allegations of brutality by rangers, this time in Zambia’s Bangweulu Wetlands, including claims of extra-judicial killings and violent beatings.

A conservation area almost the size of Devon, the Wetlands are home to 50,000 indigenous people who have the right to ‘sustainably harvest’ natural resources such as fish, antelope and rabbits.

According to Fiore Longo, campaign director of Survival International, which fights for the rights of indigenous people: ‘This is another case of abuse and violence supposedly in the name of conservation.’

Her group wrote to Harry last year about ‘appalling human rights abuses’ in Congo’s Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

At the time, Harry’s spokesman said he had ‘immediately escalated’ the allegations to the chairman and chief executive of African Parks.

There is no suggestion that Harry had any knowledge of the allegations about what happened in Zambia.

Responding to these, the charity said: ‘While there have been incidents that we condemn, suggesting African Parks is responsible for structural misconduct in the area would be false.’

Perhaps, on his next foreign visit, Harry could consider spending time in the Bangweulu Wetlands of Zambia – and seeing for himself. The claims are extremely serious.

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