BREAKING: Tinubu Swears in Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance

By Abah Margaret

President Bola Tinubu has sworn in Taiwo Oyedele as the Minister of State for Finance following his confirmation by the Senate.

The Senate confirmed Oyedele’s appointment on Wednesday, March 12, after a screening session that lasted more than two hours. Senate President Godswill Akpabio announced the confirmation through a voice vote after members of the Committee of the Whole adopted the recommendation.

President Tinubu had earlier forwarded Oyedele’s nomination to the Senate on March 3 in a letter addressed to Akpabio, seeking confirmation in line with Section 147(2) of the 1999 Constitution.

Oyedele, 50, hails from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, and brings more than two decades of experience in fiscal policy and tax administration.

Before his appointment, he served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which led a comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system.

The committee, inaugurated in August 2023, produced four executive bills that consolidated more than 60 taxes into fewer than 10 statutes and introduced several reforms, including zero income tax for Nigerians earning N800,000 annually or less.

The four bills — the Nigeria Tax Bill, Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill — were passed by the National Assembly in 2025 after extensive deliberations.

President Tinubu signed the bills into law on June 26, 2025, while the Tax Reform Acts came into effect on January 1, 2026, marking a major shift in the country’s tax system.

Under the reforms, small businesses with annual turnover below N50 million are exempted from company income tax, capital gains tax, and withholding tax, while incentives were introduced to encourage job creation and wage growth.

Oyedele previously spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he rose to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader before heading the presidential tax reform committee.

He holds a Higher National Diploma in Accountancy and Finance from Yaba College of Technology and a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University.

He has also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Oyedele currently serves as a professor at Babcock University and is a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.

He replaces Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, who has been redeployed to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning as Minister of State, marking her third portfolio in the current administration.

During his Senate screening, Oyedele described his nomination as a call to serve at a critical period for the country’s economy.

“With over two decades of experience working with national governments, multilateral institutions and global corporations, my journey across the private sector, academia and public policy has focused on fiscal governance and economic transformation,” he told lawmakers.