Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, has nominated the chair of his flagship fiscal reform committee, Taiwo Oyedele, as minister of state for finance, entrusting the architect of the country’s recent tax overhaul with steering its implementation.
The nomination, conveyed to the Senate in a letter read by the Senate president, Godswill Akpabio, was confirmed on Monday in a statement 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 Economic Planning as minister of state – her third portfolio since the administration took office in 2023.
At 50, Oyedele is best known as chair of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, inaugurated in August 2023 to rationalise Nigeria’s sprawling tax regime. The committee produced four executive bills consolidating more than 60 separate taxes into fewer than 10 statutes, in what officials described as the most comprehensive fiscal reform in decades.
The resulting Tax Reform Acts, which came into force on 1 January 2026, introduced a zero income tax rate for Nigerians earning N800,000 a year or less and exempted small businesses with turnover below N50m from company income tax, capital gains tax and development levies.
Other measures included a 50% tax deduction for companies hiring new workers for three years, similar relief for wage increases to the lowest-paid employees, and a five-year corporate tax holiday for agricultural enterprises.
As minister of state, Oyedele will serve under the finance minister, Wale Edun, whose portfolio spans fiscal policy, revenue mobilisation and debt management. He is expected to focus on embedding the reforms and boosting government revenues amid continuing economic pressures.
An economist and accountant by training, Oyedele obtained a higher national diploma in accountancy and finance from Yaba College of Technology before earning a BSc in applied accounting from Oxford Brookes University. He later completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science and the Harvard Kennedy School.
He spent 22 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers, joining in 2001 and rising to become fiscal policy partner and Africa tax leader before leaving to head the presidential tax reform committee. He also holds academic roles as a professor at Babcock University in Ogun state and a visiting scholar at Lagos Business School.
Dr Anite-Uzoka, who now moves to the budget and planning ministry, previously served as minister of state for industry, trade and investment before her appointment to the finance ministry – a sequence of reshuffles that has drawn quiet scrutiny in policy circles.
The Senate is expected to screen and vote on Oyedele’s nomination in the coming weeks. If confirmed, he will be sworn in at a time when the administration is seeking to broaden the tax base, improve compliance and stabilise public finances in Africa’s largest economy.
