President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday asked the Senate to screen and confirm Mr. Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance, replacing Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite.
The President also urged the upper legislative chamber to confirm former Rivers South-East senator, Magnus Abe, as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
The requests were conveyed in separate letters read during plenary by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio.
In the letter, Tinubu urged the Senate 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. In that role, he led efforts to introduce reforms aimed at overhauling Nigeria’s tax system.
The 50-year-old economist, accountant and public policy expert spent 22 years at PwC. He joined the global professional services firm in 2001 and rose through the ranks to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
In a separate correspondence, the President also asked the Senate to screen and confirm Abe as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission following the resignation of Gbenga Komolafe.
Additionally, the President nominated Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, as non-executive commissioners of the commission.
After reading the President’s letters during plenary, Akpabio referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream for further legislative consideration.
