… tax reform architect, Taiwo Oyedele, to take over
President Bola Tinubu of Nigeria has removed Wale Edun as minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, ending a 32-month tenure in which Africa’s largest economy underwent its most ambitious fiscal overhaul in a generation, even as persistent shortfalls against revenue targets clouded the picture.
George Akume, the secretary to the government of the federation, announced the change on Tuesday, saying the reshuffle was aimed at “strengthening cohesion, synergy in governance” and delivering “more impactful” results under the president’s Renewed Hope Agenda. Mr. Edun has been directed to complete a handover by close of business on Thursday, April 23, 2026.
His replacement is Taiwo Oyedele, who served as minister of state in the same ministry and previously chaired the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee, the body that designed a set of transformational tax bills currently before the National Assembly.
The appointment demonstrates that Mr. Tinubu intends to press ahead with, rather than retreat from, a reform programme that has generated fierce opposition from northern governors and triggered prolonged legislative battles.
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Mr. Edun’s removal came days after he returned from leading ₦igeria’s delegation to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, where he told reporters that Nigeria was “not looking for any financial support from the IMF” and projected confidence in the country’s economic trajectory.
The timing is reflective of the complexity of his tenure. On the positive side of the ledger, Edun oversaw verifiable structural improvements: the debt-service-to-revenue ratio fell from 97 percent in the first half of 2023 to 68 percent by 2024. Government revenue as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose to 13 percent in the second quarter of 2024, up from an average of 8 percent in the years prior. Nigeria’s oil production climbed to 1.8 million barrels per day by early 2026, against roughly 1.47 million in 2023, providing increased foreign exchange receipts.
Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa
In February 2026, Edun signed a Presumptive Tax Regulations framework, a step towards broadening the tax base for smaller businesses. The government also ceased its reliance on central bank overdraft financing, the so-called ‘ways and means’ advances, that had contributed to runaway inflation under the previous administration.
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Against those gains, revenue performance fell consistently short of targets. Federal government revenue in 2024 came in at ₦19.4 trillion (US$13.9 billion at Q1 2026 rates), some 19 percent below the ₦25.9 trillion (US$18.5 billion) budgeted for the year, with oil revenue alone running 23.5 percent below target.
Debt service consumed 69 percent of total revenue in 2025 — well above the 30 to 40 percent threshold that international lenders consider sustainable for developing economies — and the fiscal deficit reached ₦13.5 trillion (US$9.6 billion), materially exceeding the projected ₦9.2 trillion (US$6.6 billion).
The pattern persisted into 2025. Through the third quarter of that year, federal government revenue stood at ₦18.6 trillion (US$13.3 billion), representing just 61 percent of the full-year target — a shortfall of proportions broadly consistent with the prior year.
President Tinubu, presenting the 2026 budget in December 2025, acknowledged the revenue underperformance directly and issued explicit directives to the finance ministry and revenue agencies to improve collection discipline.
Earlier in his tenure, Mr. Edun had set ambitious benchmarks. Speaking at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington in April 2024, he described a 60 percent increase in revenues as “very much a stretch target” that the government needed to bring the fiscal deficit down. The 2025 budget had projected ₦41.9 trillion (US$29.9 billion) in revenue — an ambitious near-doubling from 2024 levels.
Mr. Edun is a veteran investment banker who co-founded what became Stanbic IBTC in 1989 and served as Lagos State commissioner for finance for two terms. He was appointed by Mr. Tinubu in August 2023 and was one of only two figures nominated to the presidential transition council before taking office.
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The IMF has projected ₦igeria’s GDP will grow by 4.1 percent in 2026, below an earlier forecast of 4.4 percent. Inflation, which averaged 31 percent in 2024, moderated to around 14.5 percent by November 2025 before ticking back up to 15.38 percent in March 2026. Mr. Oyedele is expected to be sworn in after the handover process is completed on Thursday.
