The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday began the screening of Taiwo Oyedele, the immediate past chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, following his nomination as Minister of State for Finance.
The exercise comes barely 24 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu wrote to the Senate seeking Oyedele’s screening and confirmation to join the Federal Executive Council, replacing Doris Uzoka-Anite.
In a separate request, Tinubu also asked the upper chamber to confirm Magnus Abe, a former senator representing Rivers South-East, as Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
The requests were contained in separate letters read during plenary by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio.
In the letter, Tinubu urged lawmakers to consider and approve Oyedele’s nomination as part of ongoing adjustments within the Federal Executive Council.
Until his nomination, Oyedele, who hails from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, served as chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he led efforts to overhaul Nigeria’s tax system.
Oyedele, 50, is an economist, accountant, and public policy expert. Before heading the presidential tax reform committee, he spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, joining the firm in 2001 and rising to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
Following the reading of the president’s request, Akpabio referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream for further legislative consideration, in line with the chamber’s constitutional oversight responsibilities.
