Nearly two years after the heartbreaking death of singer Ilerioluwa Aloba, popularly known as Mohbad, his father Joseph Aloba has shared new details that paint a disturbing picture of the final hours leading to his son’s death and what happened after.
In a raw and emotional interview with activist VeryDarkMan, Mr Aloba revealed that on September 12, 2023, at 4:30 p.m., he received a call from Iya Mohbad, saying that Mohbad was not feeling well and had been taken to the hospital.
He agreed to meet her so they could head there together. She arrived with Iyá Tunde, an aunt of Wunmi (Mohbad’s partner), and the three of them took a ferry.
“Different calls were entering their phones,” he said, recalling how tension filled the air during the journey.
At around 6:30 p.m., as they reached Osapa London bus stop, a call came in from Darosha, Mohbad’s close associate and uncle. Mr Aloba took the phone from Iya Mohbad and asked for directions to the hospital. But the response he got was suspicious.
“He said, ‘Oh, you can go back home, Moh is now fine and is receiving treatment.’ But I insisted I would see my son because I suspected that he was dead as there’s a way the whole situation was put.”
They arrived at Mohbad’s house at around 9:00 p.m. and were met with a crowd. Mr Aloba made his way inside and headed upstairs to his son’s room. What he saw there shook him.
“The first thing I saw was a duvet soaked with blood.”
Shortly after, Lifestyle, one of Mohbad’s friends, called him to come downstairs, and there, on the floor, was Mohbad’s lifeless body, surrounded by some alfas (clerics).
“I asked Wunmi what happened. She said, ‘It was the injection he got that reacted. Carry him to the village and invoke his spirit.’ But I said, ‘No, I am a pastor, I don’t believe in such.’”
Inside the house with the late singer’s body were several key figures: Darosha, Lifestyle, DJ Bami, Adura, and Iyá Lolade. He also mentioned that he saw Zlatan and Mohbad’s lawyer there. Strangely, he never set eyes on the nurse, Feyisayo Ogedengbe, who administered the controversial injection earlier that day.
When Mr Aloba requested that the body be taken to the police station and morgue, he was met with resistance. Despite his efforts to follow due process, he claimed that the police refused to issue a death report, saying he didn’t report the death immediately.
“Wunmi had the doctor’s report with her and kept mute. Instead of taking him to the morgue, they took him back to the house and embalmed him. Nobody called me. The morgue rejected his body when I eventually got there that night.”
He said he left the morgue around midnight and went home after giving instructions for burial. It wasn’t until the following day that he saw Mohbad’s coffin on television — a coffin he said he did not purchase. He said firmly:
“I want to know what killed my son,”
“The police didn’t investigate the people in the house with him. They didn’t do phone forensics. They didn’t question those who returned his body home, even though they had the doctor’s report.”
“They didn’t interrogate the person that embalmed Mohbad either and they knew I had written a petition. My son was embalmed less than three hours after he died.”
In a moment of deep emotion, Joseph Aloba expressed regret over the system’s failure.
“I regret being born in Nigeria. Whenever my son gets justice, I will relocate from Lagos.”
Since Mohbad’s passing, the case has been riddled with inconsistencies. Though the Lagos State Police Command exhumed his body and conducted a toxicology test in the U.S., the results which were released in May 2024, were deemed inconclusive.
Mohbad, who had left Marlian Music in 2022, had made multiple complaints of harassment, non-payment, and assault prior to his death. Videos of him being attacked circulated online just weeks before the tragic event, prompting nationwide protests and the viral hashtag #JusticeForMohbad.
Recently, a coroner’s court recommended the criminal prosecution of Nurse Ogedengbe for gross negligence. But for Mohbad’s father, justice is far from served and the haunting details he continues to uncover only deepen the mystery around the singer’s sudden death.
