  Let $p$ be a prime number. A longstanding conjecture asserts that every
finite non-abelian $p$-group has a non-inner automorphism of order $p$. In this
paper, we prove that if $G$ is an odd order finite non-abelian monolithic
$p$-group such that every maximal subgroup of $G$ is non-abelian and $[Z(M), g]
\leq Z(G)$ for every maximal subgroup $M$ of $G$ and $g \in G \setminus M$.
Then $G$ has a non-inner automorphism of order $p$ leaving the Frattini
subgroup $\Phi(G)$ elementwise fixed.
