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

The President also urged the upper chamber to confirm former Rivers South-East senator, Magnus Abe, as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.

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

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

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Until his nomination as minister, Oyedele, from Ikaram in Akoko, Ondo State, served as chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, where he spearheaded reforms aimed at overhauling Nigeria’s tax system.

The 50-year-old is an economist, accountant and public policy expert.

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.

The President also wrote to the Senate, seeking the screening and subsequent confirmation of Senator Magnus Abe as chairman of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, following the resignation of Gbenga Komolafe.

Also for confirmation by the Senate 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. Both were nominated as non-executive commissioners.

Tinubu’s letter was read by Akpabio, who subsequently referred the nominations to the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream for further legislative action.