- Safiu Kehinde
President Bola Tinubu has nominated the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele as the minister of state for finance, replacing Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite.
This was disclosed in a statement issued on Tuesday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy.
According to the statement, Tinubu had since written to the Senate for the confirmation of Oyedele’s appointment.
Uzoka-Anite, on the other hand, has been transferred to the Ministry of Budget and National Planning, as the Minister of State, her third portfolio in the administration.
Last year, there were speculations about plans to remove the Minister of Finance Olawale Edun owing to ill health.
Edun had reportedly fallen ill while there were reports that his ill health was affecting the pace of work in the Ministry.
Oyedele’s nomination as Minister of State for Finance might not be unconnected with the lingering belief that the Finance Minister has not been strong enough to face the rigour his office demands.
As profiled by Onanuga, Oyedele who hailed from Ikaram, Akoko, Ondo State, is an economist, accountant and public policy expert.
He attended Yaba College of Technology, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in accountancy and finance.
The 50-year-old economist attended Oxford Brookes University and earned a BSc in applied accounting.
He also completed executive education programmes at the London School of Economics, Yale University, the Gordon Institute of Business Science, and the Harvard Kennedy School. Oyedele spent 22 years of his working career at PwC, joining in 2001 and rising to become the Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.
Oyedele is also a professor at Babcock University in Ogun State and a visiting scholar at the Lagos Business School.