President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Monday swore in Taiwo Oyedele as the Minister of State for Finance at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
The brief swearing-in ceremony was held in the President’s office around 2:30 pm, shortly after Oyedele arrived at the Villa with his wife.
His inauguration comes five days after the Senate confirmed his nomination following an extensive screening that lasted more than two hours. Senate President Godswill Akpabio announced the confirmation through a voice vote after lawmakers adopted the recommendation of the Committee of the Whole.
Tinubu had earlier forwarded Oyedele’s nomination to the Senate on March 3 in a letter requesting approval in line with Section 147(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
Oyedele, 50, is from Ikaram-Akoko in Ondo State and has over 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 carried out a major overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system. The committee produced four executive bills aimed at streamlining the country’s tax structure and reducing the number of taxes.
The bills — the Nigeria Tax Bill, Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, and Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill — were later passed by the National Assembly in 2025.
Tinubu signed the bills into law on June 26, 2025, with the Tax Reform Acts taking effect on January 1, 2026. Among the reforms were provisions granting zero income tax to Nigerians earning ₦800,000 or less annually and exemptions for small businesses with turnover below ₦50 million from company income tax, capital gains tax, and withholding tax.
Oyedele previously spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he served as 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 programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Harvard Kennedy School and the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Oyedele replaces Doris Uzoka-Anite, who has been redeployed as Minister of State in the Ministry of Budget and National Planning.
During his Senate screening, Oyedele described his nomination as a call to serve at a crucial time for Nigeria’s economy, noting that his experience across the private sector, academia and public policy has focused on fiscal governance and economic transformation.
