President Bola Tinubu has nominated Dr. Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance.
The nomination was conveyed to the Senate in a letter addressed to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
Oyedele replaces Dr. Doris Anite-Uzoka, who has been redeployed to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning as Minister of State. The redeployment marks her third ministerial assignment in the current administration.
Before his nomination, Oyedele chaired the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he led a sweeping overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system. The committee, inaugurated in August 2023, produced four executive bills that consolidated more than 60 different taxes into fewer than 10 laws.
The reforms, which took effect on January 1, 2026, introduced several major changes, including zero income tax for Nigerians earning N800,000 or less annually. Small businesses with annual turnover below N50 million were also exempted from company income tax, capital gains tax and development levy.
Other incentives under the new tax regime include a 50 per cent deduction for companies hiring new employees for three years, a similar deduction for wage increases for low-income workers, and a five-year corporate tax holiday for agricultural enterprises.
A native of Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, the 50-year-old economist and accountant 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 Gordon Institute of Business Science and the Harvard Kennedy School.
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Oyedele spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, rising to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader before his appointment to head the tax reform committee. He is currently a professor at Babcock University and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.
As Minister of State for Finance, Oyedele is expected to play a key role in implementing the tax reforms he championed, especially as the government intensifies efforts to boost revenue generation and strengthen fiscal policy.
The Ministry of Finance is headed by Wale Edun as substantive minister and oversees fiscal policy, revenue mobilisation, debt management and broader economic planning. The Senate is expected to screen and confirm Oyedele’s nomination in the coming weeks before he assumes office.
