President Bola Tinubu has asked the Senate to screen and confirm Mr Taiwo Oyedele as Minister of State for Finance, replacing Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite.

The President also requested the upper chamber to confirm former Rivers South-East senator, Magnus Abe, as Chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

The requests were conveyed in separate letters read during plenary on Tuesday by the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio.

In his letter, Tinubu urged lawmakers to approve Oyedele’s nomination as part of ongoing adjustments within the Federal Executive Council.

Until his nomination, Oyedele, an indigene of Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, served as Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he led initiatives aimed at restructuring Nigeria’s tax system.

The 50-year-old economist, accountant and public policy expert previously spent 22 years at PwC, joining the firm in 2001 and rising to become Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader.

In a separate request, the President sought the Senate’s confirmation of Magnus Abe as NUPRC chairman following the resignation of Gbenga Komolafe.

Also nominated for confirmation are Paul Yaro Jezhi, a former Trade Union Congress chairman in Kaduna State, and Sunday Adebayo Babalola, a former deputy director at the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources, as non-executive commissioners of the commission.

Following the reading of the letters, Akpabio referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) for further legislative action.