Nigeria’s Inflation Eases Further to 15.1% in January 2026

By Adedapo Adesanya

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased further to 15.10 per cent in January 2026, down from 15.15 per cent in December 2025, continuing the moderation that started in the latter months of 2025.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined to 127.4 points in January 2026, reflecting a 3.8-point decrease from the preceding month of December 2025, which came in as 131.2 points.

The data, which is the first of the year, beat analysts’ expectations, which had expected an 18 per cent growth. Instead, the January 2026 print showed a decrease of 0.05 per cent compared to the December 2025 Headline inflation rate.

On a year-on-year basis, the inflation rate was 12.51 per cent lower than the rate recorded in January 2025 (27.61 per cent). This shows that the Headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) decreased in January 2026 compared to the same month in the preceding year.

On a month-on-month basis, the Headline inflation rate in January 2026 was -2.88 per cent, which was 3.42 per cent lower than the rate recorded in December 2025 (0.54 per cent). This means that in the review month, the rate of increase in the average price level was lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in December last year.

The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending January 2026 over the average for the previous twelve-month period was 21.97 per cent, showing a 4.37 per cent increase compared to 17.59 per cent recorded in January 2025.

Nigeria’s food inflation rate in January 2026 was 8.89 per cent on a year-on-year basis. This was 20.73 percentage points lower compared to the rate recorded in January 2025 (29.63 per cent).

On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in January 2026 was -6.02 per cent, down by 5.66 per cent compared to December 2025 (-0.36 per cent).

The decline can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of water yams, eggs, green peas, groundnut oil, soya beans, palm oil, maize (corn) grains, guinea corn, beans, beef meat, melon (egusi) unshelled, cassava tuber, and cow peas (white).

The NBS data showed that the average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending January 2026 over the previous twelve-month average was 20.29 per cent, which was 18.18 percentage points lower compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in January 2025 (38.47 per cent).