“He Needs Not Know You Before Helping You” — The AWA Foundation Story and Why Oyo Central Should Trust Him With the Senate
Long before the campaign posters, long before the political consultations, and long before the declaration of senatorial ambition, Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli (AWA) was already serving, quietly, consistently, and at his own expense.
This was the powerful message that resonated through Plaza De Aruna Hotel, Eleekara, Oyo State, on April 10, 2026, as the AWA Grassroots Mobilisation Network was inaugurated to actualise the senatorial aspiration of the founder of AWA Foundation, Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli, who is seeking to represent the Oyo Central Senatorial District under the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.
The occasion offered a rare and compelling window into the soul of a man whose philanthropy has touched hundreds of lives across Oyo Central, and whose supporters believe that the Senate seat is simply the next, larger platform for a humanitarian mission already two decades in the making.
Delivering an address on behalf of the AWA Foundation Board of Trustees, Olajide Olanipekun Esq., painted a vivid portrait of a man driven not by the spotlight but by an unshakeable commitment to human dignity.
”AWA Foundation was founded about two decades ago to formalise and institutionalise the hitherto informal givings and donations of Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli,” Olanipekun told the gathering, noting that the Foundation’s structure of donations and sponsorships is entirely devoid of political or religious colouration, guided solely by the needs of beneficiaries, many of whom Dr. Alli has never personally met.
”Most of the beneficiaries of AWA Foundation’s good deeds are not personally known to the founder, because Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli needs not to know anyone before putting smiles on the faces of needy persons.”
Perhaps the most emotionally resonant aspect of AWA’s philanthropic record is his sustained investment in education. For years, AWA Foundation has consistently sponsored indigent secondary school students to register for WAEC and NECO examinations across the four local governments of the Oyo Federal Constituency, Afijio, Atiba, Oyo East, and Oyo West, with an average of 50 students sponsored annually.
The results speak for themselves. Many of those students are today university graduates. AWA Foundation has equally been paying JAMB registration fees for students seeking admission into higher institutions, and has provided outright scholarships for brilliant but financially disadvantaged undergraduates, including beneficiaries who graduated with First Class degrees from the University and the Nigerian Law School.
“One of AWA’s beneficiaries who had a First Class degree from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, was present at the occasion to lend credence to the good deeds of AWA Foundation,” Olanipekun noted proudly.
Beyond scholarships, the Foundation has renovated classroom blocks at ADS Primary School, Fiditi, and Akodudu Primary School in Atiba Local Government, constructed kitchen sheds and children’s playrooms, and as recently as March 2026, partnered with the Rotaract Club of Oyo to donate school uniforms, bags, and supplies to 60 pupils across three primary schools in Oyo West, Oyo East, and Afijio Local Governments.
AWA Foundation’s annual Anike Healthcare outreach has brought free medical checkups, laboratory tests, and drug donations to communities across Afijio, Atiba, Oyo East, Oyo West, and Surulere Local Governments. The Foundation has also quietly settled hospital bills, drug costs, and surgical expenses for hundreds of individuals within Oyo State and beyond, with one recent surgical beneficiary present at the inauguration to give personal testimony.
Understanding that development is felt most keenly in the basics of daily life, AWA Foundation has sunk boreholes in multiple communities, including a solar-powered borehole in Akodudu village, Atiba Local Government, providing clean water access to residents who previously had none.
The Foundation has also installed solar-powered street lighting across several Oyo State communities, with the illumination of the approximately one-kilometre stretch of Ademola Alli Street in Fiditi, from Iware Junction to the Ibadan/Oyo Expressway interchange, standing as one of its most visible infrastructure contributions.
In the area of economic empowerment, AWA Foundation has provided financial support to hundreds of traders, artisans, market women, and small business owners across Oyo State, offering them not charity but a fighting chance at economic independence.
For years, AWA Foundation has organised the AWA Football Competition across the four local governments of Oyo Federal Constituency, an event so deeply embedded in the community calendar that it has served as the traditional curtain-raiser for the annual Fiditi Day celebration for decades. It is the investment of a man who understands that youth development is not a slogan, it is a discipline.
In his conclusion, Barr Olanipekun posed a question that lingered in the air long after it was asked: “If all the above were done by AWA Foundation through personal funding from Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli, what do you think will be the benefits of the masses if such a man is given the mandate to represent them as a Senator?”
The answer, he suggested, is self-evident. A man who has spent his own resources, running into several millions of naira, to educate, heal, empower, and illuminate the lives of ordinary people in Oyo Central, without political prompting or public applause, is precisely the kind of man the Senate needs.
Dr. Ademola Wasiu Alli is not discovering Oyo Central because of 2027. Oyo Central has always been his life’s work. The Senate, for AWA, is simply where that work continues, at a higher level, with a larger mandate, and for even greater impact.
