Senate grills, clears Oyedele as Finance Minister of State
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Professor Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance, charging the renowned tax expert to deploy his extensive experience in fiscal policy reforms to strengthen
- ...As Minister-designate pledges realistic budgeting, policy stability for solid minerals sector
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Professor Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance, charging the renowned tax expert to deploy his extensive experience in fiscal policy reforms to strengthen government revenue generation and improve economic management.
The confirmation followed his screening by the upper chamber in the Committee of the Whole, where lawmakers expressed confidence in his competence, pedigree and professional accomplishments.
During the session, which lasted over two hours, Oyedele assured senators that he would work with relevant stakeholders to pursue fiscal reforms aimed at expanding government revenue sources, improving budget implementation and aligning fiscal policies with Nigeria’s industrialisation and economic growth objectives.
Tracing his background, the nominee told the Senate that his journey began from humble beginnings in community schools before rising through academic and professional ranks to become a globally recognised tax policy expert.
According to him, he attended Community Comprehensive High School, Ikare Akoko, where he graduated as the best student and won a N500 scholarship which enabled him to complete his secondary school examinations.
He said he subsequently studied at the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro and Yaba College of Technology where he obtained an Ordinary National Diploma and Higher National Diploma respectively before earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom.
Oyedele said he also attended executive programmes at Harvard University, Yale University, the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as the Gordon Institute of Business Science.
Beyond his academic pursuits, he told lawmakers that teaching had always been his passion, leading him to serve as a professor of practice at Babcock University and as a guest lecturer at the Lagos Business School and the University of Lagos.
Before his appointment into government, Oyedele said he built a distinguished career in the private sector where he rose to a leadership position at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s leading consulting firms.
He said he served as Africa Tax Leader and Policy Leader at PwC with responsibility for over 20 countries across the continent.
He told senators that his involvement in global reforms on ease of doing business and tax systems across more than 180 countries gave him the experience needed to contribute meaningfully to Nigeria’s economic reforms.
Oyedele noted that his recent role as Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee enabled him and his team to develop major reform initiatives aimed at modernising Nigeria’s fiscal framework.
He said the committee worked with various stakeholders to design four major tax reform bills which were eventually passed by the National Assembly.
According to him, the reforms are expected to strengthen the country’s tax system, enhance revenue generation and position Nigeria for long-term fiscal stability.
He commended the National Assembly for supporting the reforms, saying the new laws would help move the country’s fiscal system into the future.
Beyond taxation, Oyedele said the reform initiatives also focused on improving revenue from government-owned assets and enterprises, as well as ensuring that public resources are spent more efficiently.
However, he admitted that Nigerians remained concerned about how government utilises tax revenues.
“One of the most common questions people ask is that when they pay taxes, what assurance do they have that the money will be used for the right purpose,” he said, noting that restoring public confidence in government spending must remain a priority.
During the screening, senators raised concerns about Nigeria’s low revenue from the solid minerals sector despite the abundance of mineral resources across the country.
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The Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, asked the nominee how the Federal Government could better harness revenues from Nigeria’s vast solid mineral deposits.
“Apart from taxation, we have an issue. We have solid minerals scattered all over the country. But when we look at our revenue profile, we don’t see much coming from solid minerals,” Jibrin said.
“What will you do differently that will enable us harness revenue through the exploration and exploitation of these God-given endowments?”
Jibrin also lamented the continued exploitation of Nigeria’s mineral resources by foreign nationals without commensurate returns to the country.
“We see Chinese and other nationals coming to exploit these minerals and take them away to their countries, but when you look at our revenue framework, you don’t see much in terms of revenue coming from solid minerals,” he added.
Responding, Oyedele acknowledged that Nigeria had historically focused disproportionately on taxation and oil and gas revenues while neglecting other potential sources.
“For many years as a country, we have disproportionately focused on taxation and oil and gas, and that has taken our attention away from other areas where we can generate revenue,” he said.
He identified policy uncertainty as a major challenge affecting investment in the solid minerals sector.
“What we have identified is that the biggest impediment to the growth of the solid minerals sector is policy uncertainty.”
According to him, creating a stable policy environment would attract investors and significantly expand revenue from the sector.
“The team and the Minister for Solid Minerals have been doing a lot, but we need to complement that with a policy certainty environment. We may be coming to the National Assembly in this regard, because once we can fix the policy, I think the other issues are secondary, which many investors locally and globally are already familiar with in terms of how to address them.”
He cited the example of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas to illustrate how legislative guarantees can unlock major investments.
“When it was time for Nigeria LNG to invest, they were unwilling because of uncertainty. But once the National Assembly gave guarantees through legislation, we began to see results.”
Concerns over the persistent failure to implement the capital components of the national budget also dominated the session.
Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno warned that poor implementation of government spending had negative consequences for the economy.
“The Nigerian economy is largely public sector driven. It is only when government spends that it generates a multiplier effect in the economy,” Monguno said.
“But we have started witnessing a very sad trajectory in our budget implementation.”
He pointed to the absence of capital releases in the previous fiscal year.
“In 2025, we had zero release of the capital component of the budget. What steps are you going to take to nip in the bud this ugly scenario of non-implementation of the capital component of the budget?”
Monguno said the situation had triggered mounting frustration among contractors.
“This has negatively impacted the economy and we are now witnessing an avalanche of protests by contractors.”
Another lawmaker, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, urged the nominee to focus on fiscal policies capable of driving economic growth beyond taxation.
“The tax side has largely been addressed with the tax reform bills, but you also have to pursue growth,” Abdullahi said.
“What fiscal policy initiatives, apart from taxation, will you pursue to ensure the economy does not slide into stagnation?”
He also expressed concern about contractors protesting over unpaid government obligations.
“One of the major issues we have confronted is contractors coming to demonstrate in front of the National Assembly and even blocking the Ministry of Finance because they have not been paid,” he said.
“When you get to the Ministry of Finance, we want to know what you will do differently to restore growth and ensure that contractors are paid so that the economy can move.”
In response, Oyedele told lawmakers that the Nigerian economy remained largely dependent on public sector spending.
“The Nigerian economy is largely public sector–driven, even though our journey is to move towards a private sector–led economy. But that will not happen overnight,” he said.
He emphasised the need to ensure that budgets were backed by actual funding.
“When we have budgets, we need to ensure that there is funding behind them and that there are releases so that we can execute them — 100 per cent if possible — particularly for capital expenditure.”
According to him, unrealistic budgeting had contributed significantly to poor implementation.
“Looking at Nigeria’s budgets over the past five years, we have had many years where the budgets appeared too ambitious compared to the revenue. We were focusing on the expenditure side without paying enough attention to the revenue side.”
“Today, if you combine the federal and state governments, nearly half of our budgets are deficit-financed. We need to pay more attention to realistic revenue to drive our projects.”
He added that allocations without funding had little meaning.
“If you allocate money to an area considered important but there is no funding behind it, it is as good as not having allocated it.”
Oyedele said that if confirmed, one of his immediate priorities would be to carry out a comprehensive review of government financial obligations, including debts owed to contractors.
“If I am confirmed by this distinguished Senate, one of the first things I will do is create a clear status-quo analysis. In many countries, you even quantify what we call domestic arrears. If we owe contractors, we should know it,” he said.
“We should say: as of today, this is how much we owe contractors, this is how much we have, this is the gap, and this is how we plan to raise the money. That analysis will be very important.”
He also stressed the importance of discipline in project execution, noting that delayed payments to contractors often lead to inflated project costs.
“When government delays payment for years, contractors build the risk into their contract values. That ultimately increases the cost of projects,” he said.
Oyedele further emphasised the need to align fiscal policies with Nigeria’s industrialisation goals.
According to him, some tariff policies currently discourage local manufacturing by imposing higher duties on raw materials than on finished goods.
He said correcting such distortions would support local production, encourage industrial growth and create jobs.
President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who presided over the screening, described Oyedele as a highly competent technocrat whose expertise would benefit the country.
Akpabio commended President Bola Tinubu for nominating him, noting that Oyedele had played a key role in explaining the government’s tax reforms to Nigerians.
He expressed confidence that the new minister would translate his knowledge and experience into practical policies capable of strengthening the economy.
Following the screening exercise, the Senate confirmed Oyedele’s nomination, clearing the way for his swearing-in as Minister of State for Finance.
