Nigeria’s headline inflation climbed to 15.38 per cent in March 2026, up from 15.06 per cent in February, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.
The bureau said the rise signals renewed pressure on consumer prices, with month on month inflation jumping to 4.18 per cent in March from 2.01 per cent in February, pointing to a faster pace of price increases across the economy.
The report identified Food and non alcoholic beverages, Restaurants and accommodation services, and Transport as the main contributors to inflation during the period. Food inflation, however, eased slightly on a yearly basis, falling to 14.31 per cent from higher levels recorded previously.
It also showed persistent cost pressures across both urban and rural areas, with rural inflation rising to 17.22 per cent. States such as Bayelsa, Sokoto and Bauchi recorded some of the highest inflation levels in the country.
The NBS explained that the figures are based on a new Consumer Price Index structure, following a rebasing exercise using 2024 as the base year and 2023 as the weight reference period. It added that the CPI rose to 135.40 in March 2026, representing a 5.4 point increase from the previous month.
According to the report, Food and non alcoholic beverages contributed 5.55 percentage points to headline inflation, followed by Restaurants and Accommodation Services at 3.26 per cent, and Transport at 1.80 per cent. The least contributions came from Recreation, Sport and Culture, Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco and Narcotics, and Insurance and Financial Services.
Food inflation stood at 14.31 per cent year on year, lower than 25.22 per cent recorded in March 2025. On a monthly basis, it eased to 4.17 per cent from 4.69 per cent in February, driven by price movements in items such as yam, ginger, cassava tuber, groundnuts, potatoes, ogbono, tomatoes and cassava flour.
