Since taking office in 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has pursued one of the most consequential economic reset agendas in Nigeria’s recent history, scrapping fuel subsidies, unifying the FX market, and signalling a return to market-led policy.
But beyond the headline reforms and volatile macro data lies a quieter, strategic shift in governance: the elevation of women into critical ministerial, agency, and parastatal roles that sit at the heart of execution.
In his cabinet alone, out of the 48 ministers, seven are women.
While inflation and currency pressures have tested households and businesses, financial markets have told a more optimistic story.
The Nigerian Exchange Limited has rallied sharply, buoyed by reform momentum, banking sector recapitalisation plays, and a gradual re-entry of foreign portfolio investors seeking yield and policy clarity.
This piece tracks the women(in no order of ranking)shaping that transition, leaders tasked with translating reform into results across finance, trade, regulation, and state-owned enterprises.
Their influence offers a distinct lens into how Tinubu’s economic agenda is being implemented, and whether Nigeria’s early market gains can evolve into sustained, broad-based growth.
Head of the Civil Service of the Federation
Didi Esther Walson-Jack has spent more than three decades navigating the machinery of Nigeria’s public service, building a reputation as a reform-minded insider with a track record of turning bureaucratic systems into functioning institutions.
Her ascent to the pinnacle came in July 2024, when Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed her Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, placing her in charge of one of Africa’s largest government workforces at a time when efficiency, digitisation and accountability are under increasing scrutiny.
Born in Port Harcourt in 1966, Walson-Jack trained as a lawyer at the University of Lagos before beginning her career in the Rivers State Ministry of Justice. The creation of Bayelsa State in 1996 opened a defining chapter: as one of its early technocrats, she helped build legal and legislative frameworks from scratch, often operating across multiple arms of government in a system short on manpower but high on urgency.
That ability to operate across silos would become a hallmark. Rising through roles from Solicitor-General to Permanent Secretary, she later transitioned to the federal civil service, where she championed internal reforms from staff welfare systems to performance incentives while navigating the politics of labour negotiations and public sector change.
