President Bola Tinubu has formally requested the Senate to screen and confirm Taiwo Oyedele as the Minister of State for Finance.
The nomination, read during the Senate plenary on Tuesday by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, marks a significant change in the federal cabinet, with Oyedele set to replace Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite.
Until his appointment, Oyedele served as the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he played a central role in restructuring Nigeria’s tax system.
An economist and chartered accountant, the 50-year-old nominee brings over two decades of professional experience to the role, having spent 22 years at PwC, where he rose to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
His academic background includes studies at the Yaba College of Technology, Oxford Brookes University, the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School.
He is also a professor at Babcock University and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.
In a separate communication to the upper chamber, President Tinubu also requested the confirmation of Senator Magnus Abe as the Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
This nomination follows the resignation of the former chairman, Gbenga Komolafe.
The President further requested the confirmation of Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Mr. Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, as non-executive commissioners on the NUPRC board.
Senate President Akpabio referred the nominations for the petroleum sector regulators to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream for further legislative action.