By our reporter
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped to 15.1 percent in January 2026, down from the 15.15 percent recorded in December 2025.
The bureau disclosed this on Monday in its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
According to the NBS, “The January 2026 Headline inflation rate showed a decrease of 0.05% compared to the December 2025 Headline inflation rate.”
It added that, “On a year-on-year basis, the Headline inflation rate was 12.51% lower than the rate recorded in January 2025 (27.61%).”
The report further stated, “This shows that the Headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) decreased in January 2026 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., January 2025).”
On a month-on-month basis, the bureau said, “the Headline inflation rate in January 2026 was -2.88%, which was 3.42% lower than the rate recorded in December 2025 (0.54%).”
“This means that in January 2026, the rate of increase in the average price level was lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in December 2025,” the NBS said.
FOOD INFLATION RATE STOOD AT 8.89%
The statistics office also said the food inflation rate for January stood at 8.89 percent on a year-on-year basis.
It said this was 20.74 percentage points lower compared to the rate recorded in December 2025, which stood at 29.63 percent.
“On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in January 2026 was -6.02%, down by 5.66% compared to December 2025 (-0.36%),” the report stated.
The bureau attributed the decline to the drop in the average prices of items such as water yam, eggs, green peas, groundnut oil, soya beans, palm oil, maize grains, guinea corn, beans, beef meat, melon (egusi) unshelled, cassava tuber and cow peas (white).
“The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending January 2026 over the previous twelve-month average was 20.29%, which was 18.18% points lower compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in January 2025 (38.47%),” the NBS added.
The bureau further noted that food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kogi at 19.84 percent, followed by Benue at 18.38 percent and Adamawa at 17.29 percent.
On the other hand, Ebonyi (1.69 percent), Abia (3.23 percent) and Imo (3.74 percent) recorded the slowest rise in food inflation year-on-year.
On a month-on-month basis, food inflation was reportedly highest in Imo (-1.26 percent), Akwa Ibom (-2.21 percent) and Zamfara (-2.96 percent).
Meanwhile, Yobe (-11.88 percent), Nasarawa (-9.06 percent) and Sokoto (-8.31 percent) recorded declines in food inflation on a month-on-month basis
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