President Bola Tinubu has written to the Senate requesting the screening and confirmation of Taiwo Oyedele as the Minister of State for Finance.

The request was contained in a letter addressed to the Senate and read during plenary by Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Tuesday.

In the letter, the President asked the upper legislative chamber to consider and confirm Oyedele for the ministerial position. The nomination is intended to replace Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, who previously held the office.

Before his nomination, Oyedele served as the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, a body responsible for reviewing and reforming Nigeria’s tax system.

Oyedele, an economist, accountant and public policy expert, is from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State.

He obtained a Higher National Diploma in Accountancy and Finance from Yaba College of Technology and later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Accounting from Oxford Brookes University.

He also attended executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Oyedele spent about 22 years working at PwC, where he joined in 2001 and rose to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.

In addition to his professional work, he serves as a professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and is also a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.

In the same communication to the Senate, President Tinubu also requested the confirmation of former senator Magnus Abe as Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission following the resignation of Gbenga Komolafe.

The President also nominated Engineer Paul Yaro Jezhi and Mr. Sunday Adebayo Babalola as non-executive commissioners of the commission.

Senate President Akpabio subsequently referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream for further legislative consideration