Joseph Aloba, the father of the late Nigerian musician Ilerioluwa Aloba, better known by his stage name MohBad, claims that on the day of the deceased’s death, his son’s body was already embalmed and waiting for him on the staircase.
Aloba declared as much, pleading with the authorities to step up their inquiry to find out why his kid died.
The grieving father also disclosed how his son’s body was locally embalmed at the location where he discovered it in a statement he wrote and forwarded to Platinum Times on Thursday.
He said,
“When I got to my son’s house, I met a very large number of people as if a special event was going on, I didn’t even pay any attention to the crowd I saw in the house. I went straight into his apartment after seeing lots of people in the house, I knew something had happened to me, even as no one told me anything.
“I went straight upstairs to his room where we used to talk as father and son, I saw no one in that room but a duvet-cloth that was stained with much blood, if not God that has never put me to shame, he made Mohbad’s aunt to also see the cloth and she was able to come public and affirm to that horrible scene.
“All these never signify to my mind that my son was no more and while I left the room, my attention was called to where my son, Mohbad, was laid by the staircase lifeless after he had been cleaned up, dressed and embalmed locally blocking his nostrils and ears with heavy cotton wool.
“It was after seeing the lifeless body of my son Mohbad, that I started looking around to see different faces including Mohbad’s lawyer. There I was then asked what I wanted to do with the body while standing like a fresh madman.”
While calling for the probe of those who were with him between the last 72 and 48 hours before his death, he said looking elsewhere would amount to scratching the issue on the surface.
He also expressed disappointment in the government authorities for failing to take action at the early stage of the incident.
According to him, the deceased’s home also ought to have been cordoned as the crime scene shortly after he died.
He added,
“The death of Mohbad happened in his house, he died at home and looking elsewhere if the first point of concentration is not the house could be that we are just addressing such an important issue on the peripheral.
“I expected everyone in that house to be thoroughly questioned to get to the root of the matter, even if Mohbad’s mother has been manipulated to believing a wrong narrative, everyone that was with Mohbad 48 to 72 hours before his death must be investigated, to the extent that the house should have been cordoned as the crime scene and thorough investigation should have taken place immediately Mohbad’s death was made public.
“But to my utmost disappointment, the state government did nothing when the matter was fresh, and the Nigeria Police also did nothing, until the public rose to ask that they needed to know the cause of Mohbad’s death.
“I hereby use this opportunity to call on the government, the Nigeria Police, all human rights activists and the general public to please get more serious in unravelling the cause of Mohbad’s death and the perpetrator(s) be brought to book so that Nigerians, within, in diaspora and the entire world can have renewed trust and confidence in the Nigerian system.”
Mohbad died on September 12 at the age of 27, with circumstances surrounding his death sparking controversies on social media.
Being a former record label signee of Marlian Music owned by Naira Marley, Mohbad left the label in February 2022.
The Lagos State Police Command had on September 18, 2023, Inaugurated a 13-man special investigation team to probe the death.
His death also led to the arrest of Naira Marley, and controversial Lagos socialite, Balogun Eletu, aka Sam Larry, amongst others.
The body of Mohbad was on September 21, 2023, exhumed for autopsy to unravel the cause of his death.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, had tweeted in September 2023 that an “autopsy has been concluded” and the police were “awaiting result.”
Meanwhile, Aloba, in November 2023, had stated that nobody should collect his son’s body for burial without his authorisation.
When asked by our correspondent about the release of Mohbad’s autopsy report in the same month, Hundeyin disclosed that the command had yet to get the report officially.
Also in an interview with news men in December 2023, Hundeyin reiterated that the command had not received the report of the autopsy conducted on Mohbad from the pathologists.
He said, “We’re not the pathologists who carried out the autopsy.”