Prince Harry and Meghan Markle trying to make a ‘royal roadshow’ to rival official tours
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are going on a non-official royal tour to Nigeria in May.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are trying to make a ‘royal roadshow’ to rival official tours, experts claim.

The Sussexes are embarking on a non-official royal tour of Nigeria next month after being invited by the Department of Defence.

While there they will take part in ‘cultural activities’ and meet service members, things often done by senior members of the Royal Family during official tours.

One royal commentator has accused the couple of “playing the royal card” as an “income lifeline” as well as “trying to have their cake and eat it”.

Defence spokesman, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, met Harry at last year’s Invictus Games and expressed “honour and delight” after the couple accepted the invitation to visit.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were invited by the Nigerian Defence Office

Their Nigerian tour will take place after the Prince visits the UK to mark the tenth anniversary of the Invictus Games at St Paul’s Cathedral. No senior members of the Royal Family are expected to attend.

Royal biographer Tom Bower told the Mail: “Playing the ‘Royal Card’ has become Meghan’s and Harry’s income lifeline. Once again, the ‘privacy-seeking’ couple are exploiting the family they have outrageously denounced to pump up their publicity.

“Undoubtedly, the trip will be financed by the Nigerian government. Their motives, as members of the Commonwealth, remain obscure.”

Royal author Phil Dampier said there was an irony to the visit as the Sussexes have been critical of the Commonwealth, with the Duchess admitting she “did not know” about it until after she joined the firm.

He said: “It’s ironic that the late Queen wanted Harry and Meghan to very much be her ambassadors throughout the Commonwealth and spread goodwill among its fifty or so nations, but they didn’t want to do it as royals.

“Now they are happy to pick and choose invitations they receive from these countries. They did so in Jamaica and now plan to travel to Nigeria, a country his mother Diana toured with the King in the early 1990s.

“They are in effect trying to set up a rival court, their own royal roadshow, and I think people can see through it. They heavily criticised the monarchy and the Commonwealth in their Netflix shows and Harry’s book Spare, yet they are happy to be invited simply because of their royal connections.”

Mr Dampier said that unofficial visits conducted by the pair could “blunder into a diplomatic incident” if the couple “say or do the wrong thing”.

He added: “It’s all trying to have your cake and eat it, do commercial deals where it suits, but do some quasi-official duties to make out you are still important on the world stage.

“Some will say they have every right to do this but it smacks of the half-in and half-out position the late Queen tried to avoid.”