Senate Confirms Taiwo Oyedele As Minister

The Senate has approved the nomination of Taiwo Oyedele to serve as a minister-designate in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration.

The Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, announced the confirmation after lawmakers cleared the nominee through a voice vote at the Committee of the Whole.

Oyedele is expected to replace Mrs. Doris Uzoka-Anite as Minister of State for Finance.

The Senate had on Wednesday screened Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance.

The screening process began during plenary after the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, moved a motion to admit the nominee into the chamber.

Following the motion, senators approved Oyedele’s entry into the chamber to begin the confirmation process for the ministerial position.

Oyedele was subsequently ushered into the chamber by Basheer Lado, the Special Adviser to Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Senate Matters.

The ministerial nominee arrived in the Senate chamber at about 2:21 pm in the company of several government officials.

Among those who accompanied him were Kayode Ajulo, Commissioner for Justice in Ondo State, and Tokunbo Kayode, a former Minister of Defence.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had nominated Taiwo Oyedele as the minister of state for finance, replacing Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite.

Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, confirmed the development in a statement issued last week.

According to the statement, Uzoka-Anite will now move to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, as the Minister of State, her third portfolio in the administration.

Until President Tinubu nominated him as a minister, Oyedele from Ikaram, Akoko, Ondo State, was the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which overhauled Nigeria’s tax system.

Oyedele, 50, is an economist, accountant, and public policy expert.

He attended Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in accountancy and finance. He attended Oxford Brookes University and earned 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.

Oyedele spent 22 years of his working career at PwC, joining in 2001 and rising to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.

Oyedele is also a professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.