President Bola Tinubu on Monday swore in Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The brief ceremony took place at the President’s office at about 2:30 p.m., five days after the Senate confirmed Oyedele’s nomination. A source present at the event said the new minister arrived at the Villa around 2:09 p.m. accompanied by his wife, after clearing security. Oyedele was dressed in a navy blue suit, while his wife wore white traditional attire.
The Senate had on Wednesday, March 12, confirmed his appointment through a voice vote following 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, on March 3, forwarded Oyedele’s nomination to the Senate in a letter addressed to Akpabio, seeking confirmation in line with Section 147(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Oyedele, 50, hails from Ikaram, Akoko, in Ondo State and brings more than two decades of experience in fiscal policy and tax administration to his new role. Before his appointment, he served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, inaugurated in August 2023 to overhaul Nigeria’s tax system.
The committee produced four key executive bills — the Nigeria Tax Bill, the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill — consolidating over 60 taxes into fewer than 10 statutes. The reforms introduced measures such as zero income tax for Nigerians earning N800,000 or less annually and exemptions for small businesses with turnover below N50 million from company income tax, capital gains tax, and withholding tax.
The National Assembly passed the bills in 2025 after extensive debates, and President Tinubu signed them into law on June 26, 2025. The Tax Reform Acts took effect on January 1, 2026, marking a significant shift in Nigeria’s tax regime, with additional incentives aimed at boosting employment and wage growth.
Before heading the reform committee, Oyedele 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 BSc in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University. He has also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, 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 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 time when Nigeria faces significant fiscal challenges and remarkable opportunities,” pledging to deploy his experience across the private sector, academia, and public policy to strengthen fiscal governance and drive economic transformation.
