UPDATE: Senate Leader’s Aide, Abayomi Ogundipe Clears Air On Mega Empowerment Items Claimed In Ruins

... Says Tricycles, Other Items Were Stored Outside Over Space Constraints

Credit: Newstodayng 

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Abayomi Ogundipe, the Constituency Outreach Officer to Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele has said over 30 tricycles and other empowerment equipment meant for distribution on April 2, 2025 are stored outdoors over space constraints in OODUA Textile Warehouse.

Recalled that NEWSTODAYNG on Friday, reported that some of the empowerment equipments were not properly distributed, just two months after the event as the items lie in ruin.

The lawmaker, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, flagged off the empowerment initiative on April 2, 2025, distributing items reportedly worth billions of naira to thousands of constituents.

The initiative, tagged “Renewed Hope Mega Empowerment for Ekiti Central Senatorial District”, was designed to benefit over 5,000 residents across five local government areas which include: Ijero, Efon, Ekiti West, Ado-Ekiti, and Irepodun/Ifelodun.

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Items distributed during the programme included minibuses, motorcycles, tricycles, freezers, ambulances, gas cylinders, cookers, cooking pots, generators, sewing machines, pepper and cassava grinding machines, wheelchairs, hair dryers, makeup boxes, wheelbarrows, cutlasses, hoes, tractors, lawn mowers, land tillers, educational materials, among others.

Findings showed that more than 30 tricycles, as well as some minibuses, were allegedly kept hidden in a muddy environment within the premises of the OODUA Textile Compound along Bashiri Road in Ado-Ekiti, with equipment surrounded by trucks and heaps of crates in an apparent attempt to hide them.

Some of the tricycles observed by our reporter were found in poor condition with punctured tyres, damaged bodies and signs of prolonged abandonment, raising concerns about whether the intended beneficiaries will ever receive them.

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However, Ogundipe, in a statement claimed that the tricycles and minibuses are the new empowerment tools for 2025, as they are still receiving them in batches.

He said the items were kept outdoors as a result of space constraints in the Textile warehouse where other items are stored.

He wrote in part, “A Newstoday’s publication erroneously painted a picture of empowerment materials of the Senate Leader, Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele as stolen and hidden in a ‘muddy environment’. 

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“One of the warehouses in the compound was used to house the 2024 empowerment materials as they arrived in their batches until they were distributed in April 2025.

“After the 2024 empowerment was concluded, the materials for 2025 began to arrive in batches, just like it happened in 2024.

“The materials being paraded as ‘stolen’ in this publication are the most recent batch of 2025 empowerment materials being housed at a warehouse in preparation for its disbursement, just like those of 2024 were  housed in batches. 

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“I know this because I, Ogundipe Abayomi Ibrahim, personally received most of these materials and documented the same before they were housed in the warehouse.

“Some of the materials, depending on their sizes and, sometimes,  for lack of adequate space in the warehouse, are placed outside. Where minibuses and tricycles are kept outdoor, it is customary to deflate their tyres and take out their batteries for security reasons.

“For the benefit of the constituents of Ekiti Central, the empowerment done in April is for the year 2024, as mentioned openly by Senator Michael Opeyemi Bamidele at the distribution program. The new ones being misrepresented are for your benefit for the year 2025”.

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