Nigeria’s Inflation Eases To 15.39% In August, Extends Three-Month Decline

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased to 15.39 percent in August 2026, extending its decline for a third consecutive month as food prices and broader consumer price pressures moderated.

The latest Consumer Price Index report released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that inflation declined marginally from 15.43 percent in July 2026, representing a 0.04 percentage-point moderation. Headline inflation was substantially lower than the 23.14 percent recorded in August 2025.

Although the year-on-year decline was relatively small, the monthly data showed a much stronger moderation in price pressures.

Nigeria’s month-on-month inflation rate dropped to 0.71 percent in August from 1.57 percent in July, meaning that average consumer prices continued to increase but at less than half the pace recorded in the preceding month.

The Consumer Price Index increased to 146.3 points from 145.3 points in July, indicating that overall prices remained elevated despite the slowdown in the inflation rate.

Food remained the biggest contributor to inflation during the period.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 6.16 percentage points to the year-on-year headline index, considerably more than any other expenditure category.

Restaurants and accommodation services contributed 1.99 percentage points, transport accounted for 1.64 points, while housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels contributed another 1.30 points.

Education contributed 0.95 percentage point and health accounted for 0.93 point, illustrating that household cost pressures remained spread across essential consumption categories despite the overall moderation in inflation.

Food inflation itself fell to 19.57 percent year-on-year in August, compared with 25.30 percent in August 2025.

More significantly, food inflation slowed sharply on a monthly basis to 1.02 percent from 5.56 percent in July, a decline of 4.55 percentage points.

The NBS attributed the moderation in monthly food inflation mainly to changes in the average prices of several staples and food products, including palm oil, carrots, pepper, onions, cassava flour, beef, yam flour, water yam, melon, fresh ginger, fresh fish, Irish potatoes, wheat grain, frozen chicken and turkey meat.

The development suggests that the unusually strong food-price increase recorded in July did not persist into August, helping to pull the broader monthly inflation rate lower.

Underlying inflationary pressure also weakened.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile farm produce and energy prices, stood at 13.29 percent year-on-year in August, compared with 22.93 percent in the corresponding period of 2025.

On a month-on-month basis, core inflation turned negative at -0.06 percent, compared with 0.15 percent in July.

The combination of lower monthly headline inflation, sharply slower food inflation and negative monthly core inflation points to a broader moderation in consumer price momentum during August rather than a decline driven exclusively by one component.

The picture, however, differed considerably between urban and rural households.

Urban inflation stood at 15.88 percent year-on-year, while monthly urban inflation dropped sharply to 0.28 percent from 1.90 percent in July.

Rural inflation was lower on an annual basis at 14.23 percent, but monthly rural inflation accelerated to 1.79 percent from 0.78 percent in July.

This divergence suggests that much of August’s national monthly moderation came from slower price increases in urban areas, while rural consumers experienced renewed monthly pressure.

The twelve-month average inflation rate also continued to fall.

Average CPI inflation for the twelve months ending August 2026 stood at 16.30 percent, compared with 28.32 percent for the corresponding period ending August 2025.

Inflationary conditions also varied widely across the federation.

Lagos recorded the highest year-on-year headline inflation at 23.68 percent, followed by Zamfara at 22.56 percent and Enugu at 22.06 percent.

At the other end, Sokoto recorded headline inflation of just 2.11 percent, followed by Kebbi at 3.72 percent and Jigawa at 3.81 percent.

On a monthly basis, Rivers recorded the strongest increase at 6.92 percent, followed by Osun at 5.61 percent and Kano at 5.59 percent.

Anambra recorded a monthly decline of 8.83 percent, while Bauchi and Borno recorded declines of 7.13 percent and 7.09 percent, respectively.

Food-price disparities were even wider.

Adamawa recorded the country’s highest annual food inflation at 38.85 percent, followed by Zamfara at 37.96 percent and Bayelsa at 36.20 percent.

Borno recorded -4.04 percent annual food inflation, while Jigawa recorded -0.23 percent and Kebbi 3.47 percent.

On a month-on-month basis, food inflation was highest in Katsina at 9.48 percent, Rivers at 8.86 percent and Osun at 8.32 percent. Taraba recorded the sharpest monthly decline at 12.42 percent, followed by Borno at 12.15 percent and Bauchi at 8.88 percent.

The NBS cautioned against treating these state figures as straightforward cost-of-living rankings because CPI weights reflect different consumption patterns across states and locations.

Other components of the August report reinforce the broader disinflation picture. Farm produce inflation stood at 21.52 percent annually but slowed to 1.35 percent monthly from 4.66 percent in July, while energy recorded annual inflation of 4.69 percent and a monthly decline of 0.36 percent. The NBS infographic on page 13 highlights the sharp slowdown across both components.

Services inflation stood at 15.38 percent, with prices increasing only 0.12 percent during August, while goods inflation stood at 14.74 percent with a monthly increase of 0.45 percent.

Imported food inflation was 12.82 percent annually and 0.91 percent monthly, down from a 1.19 percent monthly increase in July. These figures are presented in the report’s national sub-index charts on pages 13 to 15.

The August figures strengthen evidence that Nigeria’s inflationary momentum has moderated considerably in 2026, particularly when measured against the levels recorded a year earlier.

However, the modest movement in the annual headline rate—from 15.43 percent to 15.39 percent—also shows that the disinflation process is becoming less pronounced at the headline level.

More encouraging for monetary policymakers will be the underlying monthly numbers: headline inflation slowed to 0.71 percent, food inflation dropped to 1.02 percent and core prices declined by 0.06 percent during the month.

Those indicators could strengthen expectations of an eventual shift toward less restrictive monetary conditions if the moderation is sustained.

The outlook nevertheless remains exposed to renewed energy and transportation costs, food supply conditions and other price shocks that could reverse some of the progress recorded in August.

Source link