By Peter Omopo
The Senate on Wednesday commenced 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 screening exercise comes less than 24 hours after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu formally wrote to the Senate requesting the confirmation of Oyedele for appointment into the Federal Executive Council.
The nomination is to enable Oyedele replace Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite in the role.
In a separate request, the President also asked the Senate to confirm former Rivers South-East senator, Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.
The two requests were contained in separate letters read during plenary by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio.
In his letter, President Tinubu urged the upper chamber to consider and approve Oyedele’s nomination as part of ongoing adjustments within the Federal Executive Council.
Until his nomination, Oyedele served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he led efforts aimed at restructuring and modernising Nigeria’s tax system.
Oyedele, who hails from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, is an economist, accountant and public policy expert.
Before heading the presidential tax reform committee, he spent 22 years at the global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he joined in 2001 and later rose to the position of Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
Following the reading of the President’s letter, Senate President Godswill Akpabio referred the nominations to the relevant Senate committees for further legislative consideration in line with the chamber’s oversight responsibilities.
