He was asked to put on another gift – an outfit of a traditional waistcoat and a “Big Gown” and a Hula cap too.
Afterwards, he travelled to Reference Hospital Kaduna, the first port of call for injured Nigerian soldiers.
The Duke toured six wards, seeing row after row of young men recuperating from their injuries. Many had been shot or lost limbs after being ambushed by Boko Haram.
“You are going to get better, get back on your feet,” he told those in the first ward, during a visit in which he shook around 50 hands.
Corp Yusef, 23, who had been shot through the knee, spoke to him and the Duke asked him about his rehab. “Are you going to try for the Invictus Games team? Are you preparing for that? Don’t disappoint us” and then, pointing to his friend David Wiseman, an Invictus veteran who now works on the international expansion of the said, “or him!”
“We will see you there.”
As the Prince left the ward, Yusef was doing push ups on the bed to show his motivation to get ready.
Half way round he was introduced to 2nd Lt Princess Owowoh, 23, who had recently graduated from Sandhurst military academy where the Prince trained to be an army officer. “He wrote to congratulate me and say that they were coming to Nigeria and about the Invictus Games Foundation,” she said.
“The Invictus Games gives hope to the soldiers. It encourages them to walk towards a goal, to achieve something new.”
In the prosthetics and orthotics workshop, the Duke asked why more of the men he had just seen were not, and was told it was “partly stigma”.
As he left, he was given a large mirror decorated with a painting of himself with the Duchess.
Kaduna is labelled as a no-go zone by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which advises against all but essential travel to the state.
