President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has sworn in Taiwo Oyedele as the new Minister of State for Finance at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The brief swearing-in ceremony took place at the President’s office at about 2:30 p.m. on Monday, following Oyedele’s confirmation by the Senate five days earlier.
The Senate confirmed his appointment on Wednesday, March 12, after an extensive screening session that lasted over two hours. Senate President Godswill Akpabio announced the confirmation after lawmakers adopted the recommendation of the Committee of the Whole.
President Tinubu had earlier forwarded Oyedele’s nomination to the Senate on March 3 in a letter requesting confirmation in accordance with Section 147(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Oyedele, 50, is from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, and brings more than two decades of experience in fiscal policy and tax administration to the role.
Before his appointment, he served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, which led a major overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system.
The committee, inaugurated in August 2023, developed four executive bills aimed at streamlining the country’s tax structure. The bills consolidated more than 60 taxes into fewer than 10 statutes and introduced reforms such as zero income tax for Nigerians earning N800,000 annually or less.
The National Assembly passed the four bills — the Nigeria Tax Bill, Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill — in 2025. President Tinubu signed them into law on June 26, 2025, with the Tax Reform Acts taking effect on January 1, 2026.
The reforms also exempt small businesses with an annual turnover below N50 million from company income tax, capital gains tax, and withholding tax, while providing incentives for employment and wage increases.
Oyedele previously spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he rose to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
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.
He currently serves as a professor at Babcock University and is a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.
Oyedele replaces Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, who has been redeployed as Minister of State at the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
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