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Claim: A Facebook page posits that singer, Naira Marley and Sam Larry have been picked by The Department of State Services.
Verdict: The video used to show he was arrested is an old video from 2019 when he was picked up by the EFCC. Also, no credible media outlet has confirmed the incident.
Full Text
Controversies and conspiracy theories have trailed the death of Aloba Ilerioluwa, popularly known as Mohbad. The late singer was signed to Marlian Music owned by popular musician and rapper Azeez Fashola known as Naira Marley.
It has also been in the news that Mr Fashola treated the late singer unfairly with reports of bullying and harassment.
Mohbad died on Tuesday, Sept 12, 2023, and was subsequently buried the following day in the Ikorodu area of Lagos.
The Marlian Record label boss admitted that although they had “disagreements, no harm whatsoever was wished on Mohbad”.
Amidst this controversy, DJ Splash, who fell out with Marlian Records, shared with Iyabo Ojo that Naira Marley did not approve of the late Nigerian singer, Mr Aloba, popularly known as Mohbad, because he wanted him(Mohbad) to follow in his footsteps, but the late singer had a different path.
In a video, he revealed, “Naira Marley didn’t like Mohbad because he (Naira Marley) wants you to do what he is doing and Mohbad won’t do it. Mohbad always includes me in his activities. It’s just me and Mohbad who don’t support Naira Marley”.
Following this revelation, Nigerians called for the arrest of Mr Fashola and his friend Sam Larry or for them to be invited in for questioning by the police. In another turn of events, a Facebook group, Tessy’s Gist posted a video showing uniformed force men leading Mr Fashola away.
Ms Tessy in a voice-over said that the record label owner and Mr Larry were led away by the police because of the death of Mohbad. Her caption of the video read “Breaking news, 30 minutes ago DSS finally singer naira Marley & Sam Larry arre$ted going kirkiri to face law over the d3ath of mohbad.”
The video was also posted by another blogger “Voilet Razz Blog” with a different caption “Breaking Good News⚠️❌ Naira Marley And His Cøhorťs Sam Larry Has Just Been Ārrəsted In Kenya By The Kenyan Pol!ce Over Mohbad’s Dæth😭💔”
The four-minute video has garnered 89,000 likes, 31 comments, and 2,200,000 views since it was posted on Sept 15, 2023.
The sensitive nature of the post and the virality made us at DUBAWA investigate this claim.
Verification
First, we did an advanced keyword search to see if the development was also reported by credible media outlets and saw that no media outlets confirmed the story.
Then we used Invid, a tool for verifying videos to see if the video was used in another context and saw that Channels Television had reported in 2019, a video of Mr Fashola being arrested by The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). This means it is an old video recirculating again.
We also saw that The Lagos State Police Command has inaugurated a 13-man special investigation team to probe the death of the singer. “Do not forget, we have unique access with INTERPOL. Everybody linked to it (the death of Mohbad) will be identified and they will be brought to establish their level of involvement,” Lagos State Commissioner, Idowu Owohunwa, said on Sept. 19, 2023, at a press conference.
We visited the X account and Instagram page of the DSS to see if they had reported the incident and found nothing on their page. This also suggests that no arrest has been made yet.
We reached out to the spokesperson of the DSS, Peter Afunaya through a phone call for a statement but got no response.
Conclusion
Our investigation shows that the police have not arrested Naira Maley and Mr Larry. Investigations are ongoing, and no credible media outlet has reported the incident
