Omowunmi Aloba, the widow of the late singer Ilerioluwa Aloba, aka Mohbad, has made a desperate appeal for her husband’s burial, alleging that her father-in-law, Joseph Aloba, is purposely keeping his body in the morgue for selfish reasons.
Omowunmi, who has been without her husband for 18 months and is battling to raise their 23-month-old baby alone while navigating the lingering controversy surrounding Mohbad’s death, issued an emotional statement on Instagram on Wednesday.
She blamed her father-in-law for delaying Mohbad’s burial, suggesting that he was exploiting the public’s sympathy and the financial assistance that came with the tragic event.
She claimed that the protracted delay is motivated by self-interest rather than love or sorrow.
Omowunmi further claimed that her father-in-law was purposefully delaying the DNA test he had previously requested in order to maintain public interest rather than because he desired the truth.
She said he was swayed by some social media users who had made money off Mohbad’s passing and took advantage of the sorrow to abuse her and her child online.
She further said that some of these people were pressing her father-in-law to postpone Mohbad’s funeral by giving him a monthly payment from the money they earned online.
Omowunmi bemoaned the ongoing harassment on social media and disclosed that her father-in-law had never protected his own grandson from the hateful taunts. He supposedly listens to people who are against Mohbad’s funeral instead, saying they are now his “family.”
She wrote, “It has been 18 months since my husband left this world.
18 months of waking up every day to a reality never asked for.
18 months of missing him with every breath I take.
The heavens know how much I miss him. There are no words that can truly describe the depth of this pain, the emptiness he left behind. the pray that God, in His infinite mercy, forgives all his sins and grants him a place at His right hand. And when my time on this earth is done, I pray that I will see him again.18 months of carrying weight of being both mother and father to our now 23 month old child. 18 months of struggling to exist in a world where the love of my life is no longer beside me.
But until then, I am left here, crying out for something no wife should ever have to beg for.“To the general public, I am pleading with you, help me ask my father-in- law to bury my husband. There is no reason, no justification for why his body is still lying in the morgue after all this time. No reason why the man I vowed to love forever has been left in cold storage, denied the dignity of a final resting place.
My father-in-law is not keeping him there out of love or grief. He is holding on because of the attention and money he continues to receive. He knows that once my husband is finally laid to rest, the public sympathy, the donations,
the sudden fame he has found will disappear. He is dragging this on, not because he seeks justice, but because he benefits from my husband’s death.“He is also delaying the DNA test he demanded so loudly. He does not want the truth, he wants the conversation to continue because as long as it does, the money and support will keep coming.
And he is not alone in this.There are people on social media who stand with him, who act as his spokespersons. These people have turned my husband’s death into a business. They profit from this tragedy. They have built platforms off my pain.
They have made careers out of bullying me and my child. They make money from telling lies about me, from spreading malicious propaganda to discredit me. And worse, some of them even pay my father-in-law a monthly salary from what they make online.
“These are the people who tell my father-in-law not to bury his own son. They are the ones he listens to. He has said it himself that these strangers, these people who never knew my husband, are now his family. That they will decide when my husband is buried, not the Aloba family. And they have said over and over again that they are against it.
They claim to fight for justice, but their only real interest is the money. If justice was truly their concern, they would not have spent the last 18 months bullying me, bullying my child, cursing my son’s existence. They have done this on social media, in their private groups, even during my father-in-law’s live sessions, and he has never stopped them. He has never defended his own grandson. Instead, he sits there, listening, sometimes even adding to what they say.“I am not just a widow. I am a woman whose entire world was shattered in an instant. A woman forced to carry not only her grief but the weight of injustice, the cruelty of people who
see her pain as entertainment. A woman who is now left with no choice but to beg.
Beg for my husband to be buried.
Beg for human decency. Beg for what should have been done long ago.Please, I am pleading with you. Hear my cry. Help me. Let my husband rest. Let my child have peace. Let me grieve without this never- ending battle hanging over me. I am begging. Please.”
In September 2023, Mohbad, a rising star in Nigeria’s music business, passed away under mysterious circumstances. His passing caused a great deal of indignation, and demands for justice prompted a police investigation and autopsy.
However, because of disagreements within his family, his remains have remained in the mortuary.
