- Also submits Sen Abe’s name for scrutiny, approval as NUPRC Chairman
BY EDMOND ODOK – The Nigerian Senate has received an official communication from President Bola Tinubu seeking the screening and subsequent confirmation of Taiwo Oyedele as the Minister of State for Finance.
Oyedele is to replaced Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite and the President Tinubu’s letter was read during plenary on Tuesday by the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
Similarly, the President Tinubu also wrote to the Red Chamber seeking the screening and subsequent confirmation of former Rivers South-East Senator, Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC). Abe is replacing Gbenga Komolafe, who resigned from office in December 2025.
Oyedele, who hails from Ikaram, Akoko in Ondo State, until his nomination as a Minister, was the Chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which overhauled Nigeria’s tax system.
An economist, accountant and public policy expert, the 50 years old Oyedele attended Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in accountancy and finance.
Besides attending Oxford Brookes University and earning a BSc in applied accounting, he also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School.
A Professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School, the Minister of State in waiting spent 22 years of his working career at PwC, which he joined in 2001 and rose to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
In a related development, the President is also seeking Senate’s confirmation of a former Trade Union Congress (TUC) Chairman in Kaduna State, Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, and a former Deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola to serve in the NUPRC Board as non-executive Commissioners.
Senator Akpabio read President Tinubu’s letter and the Senate referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream.
