The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, and her husband Prince Harry are in Nigeria to promote the Invictus Games, an initiative the prince founded to support the rehabilitation of wounded and sick service members and veterans, including Nigerian soldiers engaged in a 14-year conflict against Islamic extremists.
Already, they have visited the Defence Headquarters in Abuja and Kaduna State. The DHQ expressed its delight to host the Duke, and his wife, Meghan, who in 2022, revealed that she was “43 per cent Nigerian” after doing a genealogy test. The Duchess, speaking on a podcast, Archetypes, expressed her desire to learn more about her roots.
In the episode, Markle discussed with American actress Issa Rae, Nigerian-American writer Ziwe Fumudoh, and Professor Emily Bernards. She said, “I just had my genealogy done a couple of years ago.” When her guests asked her to share what the results entailed, the Duchess said, “I’m 43% Nigerian,” to the shock of Ziwe, who responded, “No way!”.
Ziwe further asked, “Are you serious? This is huge. Igbo, Yoruba, do we know?” The Duchess of Sussex then answered, “I’m going to start to dig deeper into all of this because anyone that I’ve told, especially Nigerian women, are just like, what?”
The podcast revelation was the first time Meghan opened up about her ancestral background on the public stage.
