Former personal assistant to Nigerian singer, Davido, has revealed that he was offered N100m while in Police custody to indict Davido over the death of his friend, Tagbo Umenike.
Recall, Tagbo was a friend of Davido who died in 2017 from excessive alcohol consumption, according to autopsy reports.
In an interview with popular singer and beatmaker, Jahbless, in his podcast ‘Original Intelligence’, Davido’s former aide Aloma, revealed that Tagbo died in his arms.
Recounting how the young man died, Aloma said, “On that fateful day, it was Tagbo’s birthday. We were at Shisha Room celebrating. We were all taking Tequila, but when we noticed that Tagbo was drinking too much, we had to caution him. Even David cautioned him as well.
“We had all stopped drinking except Tagbo. I guess he was too excited because it was his birthday. When we realized that he was drunk, we had to leave. More so, there was a show we had to attend. When we were leaving, Tagbo wanted to ride along in David’s car, but David said they should go and drop him at home. That was the last time I saw Tagbo.”
Aloma noted that after they left the Shisha Room, they went to the club and then, the show they had at Oniru.
According to him, they received a call from the person that drove Tagbo home that he (Tagbo) was not feeling fine.
He said, “We advised the driver to take him to the hospital. I also left where I was to meet the driver and we took him to a general hospital. I carried Tagbo into the hospital. We waited for about 30 minutes in the hospital but nobody attended to us; they kept saying that the doctor will be with us soon. They said we should call his parents and we told the hospital staff that he is our close friend, and we have the money to pay. After about 45 minutes of waiting, I heard Tagbo say, ‘Aloma God bless you,’ and he died in my hand.”
Aloma stated that shortly after the death of their friend, he was arrested for murder. He mentioned that he spent 18 days in an overcrowded cell, and at a point, he was offered N100m to indict Davido, saying the singer killed his friend, Tagbo.
He said, “Before I knew what was happening, the Police had arrived; they arrested me and the guy that was driving the car. I spent 18 days at Panti. I was in a cell with over 150 inmates. I did not bath all through. It was during this moment that I knew David loves me.
“When they first arrested us, they first took us to Lion Building. After three days, we were taken to Panti. At that point, they had already begun to do an autopsy on Tagbo because they said it was a murder case and we were the ones that killed Tagbo. Even my mother called me to tell her the truth, asking that what did we do to him.
“When we were at the Police station, Lion Building, they took me to a room and said that I am a ‘fall man’. Beware of this music industry, everyone is trying their best to pull David down. They told me to write a statement which will state that David killed Tagbo. They gave me a blank cheque of N100m just for me to write that David killed Tagbo.”
Aloma revealed that they had written many statements because of the case but they were mandated to write another statement saying that David killed Tagbo.
“They said we should just write the statement and they will give us N100m or any other thing that we want. We refused. More so, I am certain that we will have spent all the money by this time. We wrote what happened. I am glad that we were honest because the whole incident was recorded right from when we were at the Shisha Room to the General Hospital; there were CCTVs,” Aloma said.
He continued, “If we were dishonest, we would have tarnished David’s name, and we still would not have collected the money. We would have just put ourselves into more trouble because all David does is to help the people around him. Most people would be tempted by the money because N100m is a lot of money, but we were not swayed. I had met David about four months before the incident happened. David and I were not that close at the time.”
- In October 2017, Tagbo was buried in his hometown in Nnewi, Anambra state. The news of his death was announced by Nollywood actress, Caroline Danjuma, who claimed to be a close friend to the deceased.
