Induct on the order of the p-group. Every complex irreducible representation of an abelian group is one-dimensional: commuting group operators preserve a common eigenspace, and irreducibility makes that eigenspace the whole space. This handles the abelian cases.
If is not faithful, it is an irreducible representation of a smaller quotient , where is its kernel. Induction expresses it as induced from a one-dimensional representation of a subgroup of . Pulling back the subgroup and inflating the character gives the same induction statement for , because the coset spaces of the quotient subgroup and its inverse image agree.
Now suppose is faithful and is nonabelian. Use the allowed abelian normal subgroup not contained in the centre. If restriction to were isotypic, its irreducible type would be one-dimensional, so every would act as a scalar. It would therefore commute with every representing matrix of . Faithfulness would imply in for every , contradicting the choice of . By part (a), for an irreducible representation of a proper subgroup . Induction on gives with one-dimensional. Transitivity of induction yields
This proves the monomiality of irreducible representations of finite p-groups.