It was a visit that came just two years before Charles and Diana separated – and the tensions behind the scenes were etched on their faces.
The royal couple’s five-day trip to Nigeria was one remembered for their largely separate engagements and their few awkward joint appearances.
However, when the then Prince Charles and the Princess of Wales arrived in Lagos on March 15, 1990, thousands of fans welcomed them with cheers and flags.
Diana looked resplendent in a series of dresses by designers Catherine Walker and Paul Costelloe as she characteristically attracted much of the limelight.
She displayed the kindness that she was so loved for when she held the hand of a leprosy patient at a hospital, as Charles initially stood awkwardly by her side.
At the time, the couple’s marriage troubles were not public knowledge, but they were both engaged in secret affairs.
Charles was seeing Camilla, now the Queen, and Diana was romantically involved with James Hewitt, a Captain in the British Army. She had also had a fling with her protection officer, Barry Mannakee.
It was a visit that came just two years before Charles and Diana separated – and the tensions behind the scenes were etched on their faces. Above: The royal couple visiting a farming village in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on March 19, 1990
Charles and Diana appear to have a difficult conversation on the day of their visit to the Molai Centre, a leprosy hospital in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria
Former royal correspondent Elizabeth Blunt recalled that Diana’s Nigeria trip with Charles was an attempt by the Palace to ‘revive’ interest in them.
She previously said: ‘The West African tour was officially meant to be for Prince Charles, as future head of the Commonwealth, to get to know the region; in reality it was very much more about getting the right kind of coverage in the British press.
‘Looking back, this was a low point in the royal couple’s popularity; the glamour and novelty of their marriage had worn off; the problems in their relationship had not yet become public; the palace press office was keen to revive flagging public interest in the future King and Queen.
‘The chosen solution was a punishing round of activities which took them to every corner of Nigeria and Cameroon; Prince Charles opened a British Council Library, walked in the rain forest, and greeted war veterans in a tropical botanic garden.
‘Princess Diana visited children’s hospitals, traditional hand loom weavers and women’s development projects. And wherever Diana went, the royal press pack followed.’
She added: ‘I had Prince Charles’s engagements virtually to myself; no-one else was in the slightest bit interested.’
At the time of the visit, Charles and Diana were both engaged in extra-marital affairs. Above: Diana wearing a pink and white floral patterned Paul Costelloe dress as she sits next to Charles
Charles and Diana talk to medics during a visit to the Molai Centre in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria
Charles wears a pale blue safari suit during a visit to Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in March 1990
The Princess of Wales displayed the kindness which she became famous for when she held the hand of a leprosy patient as her husband initially stood by awkwardly. The patient, named Lucky, beamed when the princess held her hand at the Molai Centre, a leprosy hospital and rehabilitation village in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria, in March 1990
The 1990 visit was Diana’s first time in the country. Charles had been as a young boy in 1956, when he accompanied his mother Queen Elizabeth II on her royal tour.
He has been back three times since, in 1999, 2006 and 2018.
Five years before the 1990 trip, Charles and Diana had shared an awkward kiss at a polo match.
By then, their two children were too young to pick up on any tension between them. Prince Harry not even a year old, whilst Prince William was barely three.
In 1987, there was another sign that the couple’s marriage was in trouble when Diana did not join the Royal Family on their annual summer trip to Balmoral.
Two years later, transcripts of an intimate phone conversation between Charles and Camilla emerged.
During the call, the Charles spoke of wishing to be close to Camilla in intimate terms – and expressed a fear of being reincarnated as a tampon.
After reading the transcript, which was reported under headlines including ‘tampongate’ and ‘Camillagate’, Diana reportedly declared ‘game, set and match.’
However, there was still royal duty to attend to, and the Nigeria visit was part of that.
Charles and Diana were deeply moved when they visited patients afflicted with leprosy at a hospital and rehabilitation village in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria in what was one of their few joint engagements in the country.
One patient, named Lucky, beamed when the princess held his hand in hers as he lay in his bed.
Diana went on to do the same to several other children, showing the kindness which she had become so famous for.
Charles initially looked more cautious and had his hands clasped behind his back but he eventually followed the lead of his wife by physically reaching out.
After the trip, Diana was made patron of the Leprosy Mission in Britain.
The couple also attended a regatta at Port Harcourt in Rivers State, southern Nigeria.
Charles and Diana went on to Cameroon before returning to the UK.
In the year the couple separated, Diana made her feelings clear in Andrew Morton’s revelatory biography.
In hours of sessions that were taped for Morton, Diana told him every detail of her experience of married life with the heir to the throne.
Prince Charles and Diana attend a rare joint engagement during their royal tour of Nigeria
Diana, Princess of Wales, wearing a pink-and-white floral patterned Paul Costelloe dress, with women during a visit to the farming village of Umuagbai in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Charles and Diana – who is wearing a pale green-and-white Catherine Walker dress with a Philip Somerville hat – are greeted by the then Nigerian vice president Augustus Aikhomu and his wife Rebecca at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on the first day of their royal tour, March 15, 1990
Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales attend a regatta at Port Harcourt in Rivers State, Nigeria, March 19, 1990
Princess Diana, wearing a blue Catherine Walker dress, inspecting a craft display at a cultural show in Enugu, Nigeria
The Princess described cutting herself with a pen knife, throwing herself down the stairs when she was pregnant and throwing up four times a day as bulimia took hold.
In 1994, Charles made his own feelings clear in Jonathan Dimbleby’s book, The Prince of Wales: A Biography.
Charles had already sensationally confessed to his affair with Camilla in a TV interview with Dimbleby earlier that year.
But the book offered up further royal bombshells, including Charles’ implicit admission that he never loved Diana, and a portrayal of his father Prince Philip as someone who could reduce his son to tears with a few harsh words.
It revealed how Charles went into his marriage believing that it was a mistake, with the Prince of Wales having felt pressured to tie the knot by his father’s warning that he had to make up his mind about her.
Dimbleby told how Diana became ‘exceptionally interested’ in Charles’s previous relationships, especially ‘with his old friend Camilla Parker Bowles’.
Questions were raised after the book was released about whether Charles could ever become King, given the way he had been so open about his family struggles.
The Prince and Princess of Wales smile as they arrive at Enugu Airport in Nigeria, March 18, 1990
Charles and Diana greet adoring crowds in Lagos, Nigeria, during their five-day tour of the country
Prince Charles and Princess Diana sit together during their royal tour of Nigeria
Further trouble was to come with Diana’s own sit-down TV interview with now-disgraced BBC man Martin Bashir the following year.
The conversation was watched by 23million people and caused a worldwide media frenzy as Diana told Bashir on ‘there were three people in this marriage’.
It emerged more than two decades later that, to secure access to Diana, Bashir showed her brother, Earl Spencer, false bank statements which suggested his former head of security had been receiving money from tabloids and the security services to spy on his sister.
Once he had gained access, Bashir told Diana a string of lies, convincing her that Prince Charles was having an affair with then royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke – now Alexandra Pettifer – and that she became pregnant and had an abortion as a result.
In December 1995, the Queen urged Charles and Diana to divorce and in August 1996, they finally did.
But less than a year later, Diana her lover Dodi Fayed died tragically in a car crash in a Paris underpass.
The Daily Mail’s report on Princess Diana’s visit to a hospital for leprosy patients with Prince Charles
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