Abidemi Faboye, the proprietor and principal of Abifab College, Ikorodu, Lagos, the secondary school Ilerioluwa Aloba, aka Mohbad, attended, has spoken about the memories he had of the late singer
The principal said he knew Mohbad when he enrolled in his school in 2013.
In his words: “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.
“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.
“He was in commercial class, and he had very good results. I would not say he was an excellent student, but he was above average. He was an easygoing person, who only played occasionally. He never made trouble. He wanted to study Accounting, and I told him there was no way he could do that without mathematics. So, he improved in mathematics and financial accounting.”
On Mohbad joining the Marlian group, Faboye explained that when he heard that the singer was a member of the Marlian group, he 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.
“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. His dad is a carpenter, and as a student, he often assisted his dad. He learnt carpentry from his father, who is also a pastor,” he stated.
