Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped slightly to 15.10 per cent in January 2026 from 15.15 per cent in December 2025, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
The decline comes despite earlier projections that inflation could rise to 19 per cent.
According to the NBS report, the Consumer Price Index fell to 127.4 in January from 131.2 in December, reflecting a 3.8-point decrease.
“In January 2026, the Headline inflation rate eased to 15.10 per cent, down from 15.15 per cent in December 2025,” the bureau stated, noting that the rate was 0.05 percentage points lower than December.
On a year-on-year basis, headline inflation stood at 15.10 per cent in January 2026, which is 12.51 percentage points lower than the 27.61 per cent recorded in January 2025.
On a month-on-month basis, inflation fell to negative 2.88 per cent, compared to 0.54 per cent in December, indicating a general decline in average prices.
The bureau said the percentage change in the average CPI for the 12 months ending January 2026 was 21.97 per cent, representing a 4.37 percentage point increase from 17.59 per cent recorded in January 2025.
Urban inflation stood at 15.36 per cent year-on-year, down from 29.45 per cent in January 2025, while rural inflation was 14.44 per cent, lower than 25.04 per cent recorded a year earlier. Meanwhile, month-on-month urban inflation declined by 2.72 per cent, while rural inflation fell by 3.29 per cent.
Food inflation recorded a sharp slowdown, easing to 8.89 per cent year-on-year from 29.63 per cent in January 2025. On a month-on-month basis, food inflation declined by 6.02 per cent compared to negative 0.36 per cent in December.
According to the NBS, the drop in food inflation was driven by lower prices of items such as water yam, eggs, green peas, groundnut oil, soya beans, palm oil, maize grains, guinea corn, beans, beef and cassava.
The 12-month average food inflation rate stood at 20.29 per cent, down from 38.47 per cent in January 2025.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile agricultural produce and energy, stood at 17.72 per cent year-on-year, compared to 25.27 per cent in January 2025. Month-on-month, it declined by 1.69 per cent from 0.58 per cent recorded in December.
At the state level, Benue recorded the highest year-on-year all-items inflation rate at 22.48 per cent, followed by Kogi at 20.98 per cent and the Federal Capital Territory at 19.25 per cent.
Meanwhile, Ebonyi, Katsina and Imo recorded the lowest rates at 8.72 per cent, 8.94 per cent and 10.61 per cent, respectively.
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