Breaking: Nigeria’s inflation rate drops to 15.1%

Nigeria’s inflation rate eased to 15.10 percent in January 2026 as consumer prices fell sharply following the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), signalling early relief from persistent price pressures, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The latest CPI report released on Monday showed that the all-items index fell to 127.4 points in January, a 3.8-point decline from December 2025, with the moderation driven largely by a steep month-on-month contraction in food prices.

In a press statement, Statistician-General of the Federation and CEO of NBS, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, said on a year-on-year basis, headline inflation declined marginally by 0.05 percentage points from 15.15 percent in December 2025 and plunged by 12.51 percentage points from 27.61 percent recorded in January 2025, underscoring the impact of the new 2024 CPI base year and 2023 weight reference period.

According to the report, “the headline inflation rate for January 2026 stood at 15.10%, fell by 0.05% and 12.51% when compared to 15.15% and 27.61% recorded in December 2025 and January 2025, respectively.”

It added that “the month-on-month headline inflation rate in January 2026 was -2.88%, which was 3.42% lower than the rate recorded in December 2025 (0.54%).”

Food inflation emerged as the biggest source of relief, slowing to 8.89 percent year-on-year and contracting sharply by 6.02 percent month-on-month, reflecting broad-based declines in staple food prices across the country.

The Bureau attributed the drop to lower prices of key food items, including yams, eggs, maize, beans, beef, cassava, palm oil and groundnut oil, easing pressure on household spending after months of sustained increases.

In its assessment, the report stated that “the decrease can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of Water Yam, Eggs, Green Peas, Groundnut Oil, Soya Beans, Palm Oil, Maize (Corn) Grains, Guinea Corn, Beans, Beef Meat, Melon (Egusi) Unshelled, Cassava Tuber, Cow Peas (White), among others.”

At the state level, inflationary pressures remained uneven, with Benue (22.48 percent), Kogi (20.98 percent) and Abuja (19.25 percent) recording the highest year-on-year headline inflation, while Ebonyi (8.72 percent), Katsina (8.94 percent) and Imo (10.61 percent) posted the slowest increases, highlighting persistent regional disparities in price movements.