Nigeria’s headline inflation rate fell to 14.63 per cent in September 2026, down from 15.39 per cent in August, as food prices declined during the month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The bureau disclosed this in its latest Consumer Price Index report, released on Thursday, which also showed that annual inflation declined from 20.98 per cent recorded in September 2025.
On a month-on-month basis, headline inflation slowed to 0.06 per cent in September from 0.71 per cent in August, indicating that average consumer prices continued to rise, but at a significantly slower pace.
Food prices declined by 1.55 per cent during the month, reversing the 1.02 per cent increase recorded in August.
The NBS attributed the movement to changes in the prices of several food items, including local short-grained rice, maize flour, guinea corn flour, fresh onions, palm oil, tomatoes, okra, Irish potatoes, plantain and eggs.
Despite the monthly decline, annual food inflation stood at 19.59 per cent in September, compared with 20.16 per cent in the corresponding month of 2025. This means that food prices remained higher than a year earlier, even though average prices fell during September.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile agricultural produce and energy prices, stood at 12.95 per cent year-on-year.
On a monthly basis, however, core inflation rose to 1.11 per cent in September from a decline of 0.06 per cent in August, indicating renewed price increases in goods and services outside the excluded categories.
Food and non-alcoholic beverages remained the largest contributors to headline inflation, accounting for 5.85 percentage points. Restaurants and accommodation services contributed 1.89 percentage points, while transport accounted for 1.56 percentage points.
The NBS report showed differing movements across the inflation sub-indices introduced following its rebasing exercise.
Energy prices increased by 5.38 per cent month-on-month, while services rose by 0.41 per cent, goods by 0.10 per cent and imported food by 0.04 per cent. Farm produce prices, however, declined by 2.86 per cent.
On an annual basis, inflation stood at 18.85 per cent for farm produce, 10.85 per cent for energy, 14.51 per cent for services, 14.31 per cent for goods and 9.18 per cent for imported food.
The report also showed that urban inflation remained higher than rural inflation, standing at 15.64 per cent year-on-year compared with 12.46 per cent in rural areas.
Monthly urban inflation increased to 0.53 per cent in September from 0.28 per cent in August. In contrast, rural prices fell by 0.89 per cent, reversing the 1.79 per cent increase recorded in the previous month.
A breakdown of inflation across the states showed that Imo recorded the highest annual headline inflation rate at 30.04 per cent in September.
Enugu followed with 22.38 per cent, while Niger State recorded 22.05 per cent.
Taraba recorded the lowest annual headline inflation rate at 1.78 per cent, followed by Bauchi at 2.84 per cent and Adamawa at 3.66 per cent.
On a month-on-month basis, headline inflation was highest in Imo at 8.64 per cent, followed by Kaduna at 4.46 per cent and Sokoto at 3.01 per cent.
Meanwhile, Adamawa recorded a monthly price decline of 6.10 per cent, Bauchi 5.31 per cent and Kano 4.49 per cent.
Lagos recorded the highest annual food inflation rate at 34.40 per cent, followed by Imo at 33.79 per cent and Ondo at 31.49 per cent.
Annual food prices declined by 7.47 per cent in Taraba and 0.37 per cent in Yobe, while Borno recorded food inflation of 2.18 per cent.
On a monthly basis, food prices rose most sharply in Imo at 5.15 per cent, followed by Ondo at 4.46 per cent and Oyo at 3.82 per cent.
Adamawa, Kano and Bauchi recorded monthly food price declines of 13.84 per cent, 11.01 per cent and 10.21 per cent, respectively.
The NBS said the September report used a 2024 base year and a 2023 expenditure-weight reference period following its rebasing exercise.
It cautioned that differences in household spending patterns influence the weights assigned to food and non-food items across states, meaning that direct comparisons between state-level inflation figures may be misleading.
The latest figures show that although Nigeria’s annual headline inflation rate continued to moderate, the pace of price increases remained uneven across different categories, with energy costs and core inflation rising on a monthly basis while food prices declined.
