Mr. Abidemi Faboye, the proprietor and principal of Abifab College, Ikorodu, Lagos, the secondary school attended by Ilerioluwa Aloba, aka Mohbad, has described the singer as a brilliant student.
Faboye, in an interview with the Punch, said Mohbad was 17 years old when he joined the school in 2013. His elder sister, Blessing, also graduated from the school in 2013.
“He was brought from a public school, and he was a quiet boy. He was tall and slim. It was years after secondary school that he added weight,” Faboye recalled.
He added: “He was 17 years old, and was a bit more mature than some of his classmates. He wrote the National Examination Council senior secondary certificate exam in 2015, and made his papers in one sitting. He spent two years in the school, and there was a transformation in his life.
“He always called me, ‘daddy’. I always wanted my students to call me ‘Abifab’ or ‘Mr Abifab’, but he found it difficult to call me that. Whenever Promise (Ilerioluwa) called me ‘daddy’, I would tell him to call me ‘Abifab’; and he would just laugh.”
Speaking on Mohbad’s journey into the music industry, Faboye said: “When I heard that he was a member of the Marlian group, I was surprised. I doubted if he could cope with such group. Although he was mature, I felt he must have mixed with a few others who joined the record label. I prayed that God would be with him, because after he left school, we did not communicate regularly.”
He continued: “Many of us, including the teachers who taught him, were surprised. When we heard about Imole, we were all surprised. I was not familiar with afrobeats music, until one day, my daughter told me, ‘Do you know Uncle Promise is now Mohbad?’ I took my phone and chatted with him via Messenger. He then gave me his number.
“When he rose to fame; sometimes, I would call him, and he wouldn’t pick up his calls. But, he would call me back and say, ‘Sir, I am in the studio rehearsing.’ He was busy with his music, and he told me that immediately he had inspirations, he would write down the lyrics in a jotter and later develop them.”
Faboye said Mohbad achieved stardom before his death and he is proud of him the way a parent would be.
He told the publication: “Before his death, he got to a level where if one tuned in to any radio station, one would hear his songs.”
