Nigeria’s price environment has shifted direction. After 11 consecutive months of declining inflation, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has confirmed that the country’s headline inflation rate rose to 15.38 per cent in March 202, up from 15.06 per cent in February.
This is according to the latest data released by the NBS in its Consumer Price Index (CPI) report on Wednesday.
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The 0.32 percentage point increase may appear modest on its face, but the underlying data tells a more unsettling story; one of accelerating short-term price pressures that will test the confidence of policymakers who had been cautiously celebrating a sustained disinflation trend.
The Month-on-Month Signal Is The Real Story
The annual figure alone does not capture the urgency of what the March data reveals.
On a month-on-month basis, headline inflation came in at 4.18 per cent in March, a sharp increase of 2.17 percentage points from February’s 2.01 per cent, the highest monthly jump in over a year. This means that prices are not just higher than they were a year ago; they are rising faster right now than they were just weeks ago.
The major drivers of the monthly acceleration were food and non-alcoholic beverages, restaurants and accommodation services, and transport.
Transport in particular stands out: transport prices rose sharply to 16.9 per cent year-on-year from 14.7 per cent in February, a trajectory directly linked to the surge in domestic fuel costs triggered by the Middle East crisis.
Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices to give a cleaner read of underlying demand pressures, also worsened.
Core inflation stood at 16.21 per cent year-on-year in March, with its month-on-month rate jumping to 4.03 per cent from just 0.89 per cent in February. That nearly fivefold monthly surge in core prices is significant: it suggests that inflation is no longer being driven solely by food supply shocks or energy pass-through, but is broadening into the wider economy.
Food Inflation: A Mixed Picture
Food remains the most politically sensitive component of Nigeria’s inflation basket, and the March 2026 data offers a partial reprieve alongside fresh concern.
Year-on-year food inflation came in at 14.31 per cent in March, a substantial improvement from the 25.22 per cent recorded in the same month of 2025. This annual decline reflects the base effect of the severe food price crisis that gripped the country through much of last year and should not be mistaken for current relief.
On a month-on-month basis, food inflation moderated marginally to 4.17 per cent from 4.69 per cent in February, with the softening attributed to price movements in items including yam, cassava, groundnuts, tomatoes, and ogbono.
Regionally, the disparities are stark. On a year-on-year basis, food inflation was highest in Bayelsa at 33.35 per cent, Sokoto at 28.02 per cent, and Adamawa at 21.67 per cent, while Kano, Oyo, and Katsina recorded the slowest increases. These state-level gaps reflect deep structural differences in supply chains, security conditions, and market access that aggregate national figures routinely obscure.
What It Means Going Forward
Rural inflation climbed to 17.22 per cent year-on-year, outpacing urban inflation at 14.64 per cent, with rural month-on-month inflation surging to 6.73 per cent from just 0.71 per cent in February, a warning that price shocks are falling hardest on the most vulnerable segments of the population.
Against this backdrop, the Central Bank of Nigeria’s earlier projection that inflation would average 12.94 per cent across 2026 now looks increasingly optimistic.
The March numbers end a disinflation narrative that had been one of the Tinubu administration’s few economic bright spots, and they arrive at a moment when fuel costs remain elevated and monetary policy room is narrow.
FURTHER READING
Whether March proves a temporary spike or the start of a new inflationary phase will depend heavily on energy price stability and the harvest outlook in the months ahead.
Philip Ibitoye is a Special Correspondent with EKO HOT BLOG. Click here to find daily analysis and critical insight on trending issues in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria.
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