Nigerian singer Naira Marley has, for the first time, opened up about how he discovered the death of his former signee, Mohbad.
Mohbad passed away under unclear circumstances on September 12, 2023, triggering nationwide outrage and calls for justice from fans and fellow artists.
Afterward, Marley, whose real name is Azeez Fashola, and his associate Sam Larry came under intense public scrutiny.
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In October 2023, Marley and Larry, along with several other suspects, were taken into custody over allegations of involvement in Mohbad’s death.
However, they were granted bail in November of the same year after spending more than five weeks in detention.
In February, a Yaba magistrate court acquitted Marley, Larry, Prime Boy, and Pere Babatunde, ruling that they had “no case to answer” regarding Mohbad’s death.
In a detailed YouTube video posted Tuesday, Marley, the head of Marlian Music, revealed that he was in Amsterdam at the time of Mohbad’s death and first heard the news through social media.
The music executive stated that he initially suspected Mohbad’s death might be a publicity stunt staged by the singer to attract attention.
Marley revealed that he started to believe the news might be real after seeing a blogger’s post suggesting that Mohbad’s death was due to an ear infection.
“I saw Instablog posted that he died of an ear infection. I said ‘how can he die of ear infection’. We were still saying that when posts began to flood Twitter,” he said.
The singer stressed that he had not seen Mohbad for about a year prior to his death. He also claimed that a particular narrative was swiftly constructed to implicate him, drawing focus away from a proper investigation.
“People started accusing me and posting videos from the NDLEA incident, the fight he had with his manager on the 4th of October 2022,” he said.
“I called Zino and we drove to Amsterdam. We could not shoot the video anymore. We did not even have time to mourn Mohbad properly because people were blaming us for what we did not do.”
Marley further criticized the investigation, arguing that in a more effective system, authorities would have concentrated on “arresting everyone who was with him in the last 24 to 48 hours” instead of singling him out over previous disputes.
“They were posting old videos. If we were in a working country, they were supposed to arrest everyone who was with him in the last 24 hours, 48 hours,” he added.
Watch him speak below…
