President Bola Tinubu has written to the Senate, seeking the screening and subsequent confirmation of Taiwo Oyedele as the minister of state for finance, replacing Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite.

The letter from Tinubu was read during plenary on Tuesday by the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

Until his nomination 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.

President Tinubu has also written to the Senate, seeking the screening and subsequent confirmation of Senator Magnus Abe as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), following the resignation of Gbenga Komolafe.

Also for confirmation by the Senate are Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Mr Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources. Both were nominated as non-executive commissioners.

President Tinubu’s letter was read by Akpabio, and he referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream. (Vanguard)