Nigeria's headline inflation reversed course in March, edging up to 15.38 percent from February's 15.06 percent and snapping an 11-month run of slower price growth, data released on Wednesday by the National Bureau of Statistics show. Food inflation, which accounts for the biggest share of the consumer basket, rose for the second straight month to 14.31 percent, while month-on-month prices jumped 4.2 percent—the fastest pace since January 2025. Core inflation, stripping out farm produce and energy, reached 16.21 percent year-on-year and climbed 4.03 percent on the month, up from 0.89 percent in February.
Bayelsa, Sokoto and Adamawa posted the sharpest food-price spikes on a year-on-year basis at 33.35 percent, 28.02 percent and 21.67 percent respectively, whereas Kano, Oyo and Katsina recorded the mildest increases. On a month-on-month view, Sokoto again led with an 11.78 percent food inflation rate, followed by Niger and Gombe at 8.59 percent and 8.10 percent. Statistician-General Adeyemi Adeniran noted that the March Consumer Price Index now uses a 2024 base year and 2023 consumption weights, pushing the index to 135.40 points, 5.4 points above February's reading.
Bayelsa's 33.35 percent food inflation is not a statistical blip; it is a flashing red light that the state's reliance on expensive riverine supply chains is collapsing under the weight of transport costs and lean harvests. While the FGN celebrates a still-lower March 2026 food rate than the 25.22 percent recorded a year earlier, households there are paying one-third more for garri and yam than they did twelve months ago, a gap that mocks any talk of "moderation."
The broader picture is that the disinflation honeymoon is over: after eleven months of gently falling prices, the March uptick shows how quickly fiscal drag (removal of fuel and FX subsidies) and currency weakness feed back into the index. With core inflation already at 16.21 percent and transport costs contributing 1.8 percentage points to the headline, businesses are re-pricing services faster than the Central Bank can talk down rate hikes. The month-on-month core surge from 0.89 percent to 4.03 percent signals that underlying demand pressures—think diesel, spare parts, rent—are refusing to cool.
For Nigerian workers earning the same N70,000 minimum wage that bought more in January, the real hit is already visible in plate sizes and bus fares. Parents in Sokoto and Niger who saw food inflation rise 11.78 percent and 8.59 percent in just thirty days are effectively working one week a month for nothing; their counterparts in Katsina or Ogun, where prices actually fell slightly, will still face higher transport and housing costs flowing from the national trend. Expect unions outside the oil sector to table fresh wage demands before the third quarter, and expect employers to answer with faster automation or smaller headcounts.
This rebound also fits a pattern: each time the NBS rebases the CPI basket, the new weights expose sectors where government policy has done least. After the 2024 rebasing, restaurants and accommodation services now punch above their historical weight at 3.26 percent of inflation, confirming that middle-class Nigerians who survived the last devaluation are now being squeezed by hospitality rents and school fees. If the current fiscal mix—tight monetary, loose fiscal, and a naira left to market wolves—persists, the next milestone may not be single-digit inflation but a second consecutive month above 15.5 percent, just in time for the 2027 political cycle to begin.
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