By Sam Otuonye
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped slightly to 15.91 per cent in June 2026, from 15.93 per cent in May, signalling continued price stability, even as food inflation maintained a monthly spike putting pressure on household food costs.
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday showed that headline inflation was significantly lower than the 25.29 per cent recorded in June 2025, while the month-on-month headline inflation rate declined to 1.66 per cent from 1.75 per cent in May.
The CPI rose to 143.0 in June following the bureau’s rebasing exercise, which adopted 2024 as the new base year and 2023 as the weight reference period.
Despite the moderation in headline inflation, food inflation stood at 17.52 per cent year-on-year, down from 25.41 per cent a year earlier, but increased sharply on a monthly basis to 3.75 per cent, compared with 2.98 per cent in May.
According to the NBS, the rise in monthly food inflation was driven by higher prices of crayfish, fresh pepper, tomatoes, beef, garri, cassava flour, cowpea, yam tubers, Irish potatoes, banana and water yam, among other staples.
The report showed that Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages remained the biggest contributor to headline inflation at 6.37 percentage points, followed by Restaurants and Accommodation Services (2.06 percentage points) and Transport (1.70 percentage points).
Core inflation, which excludes volatile agricultural produce and energy prices, stood at 15.92 per cent year-on-year, while its month-on-month rate slowed to 1.66 per cent from 1.94 per cent in May.
Among the newly introduced indices, farm produce inflation rose 4.42 per cent month-on-month, while energy prices declined by 7.54 per cent. On a yearly basis, farm produce inflation stood at 18.81 per cent, services 15.99 per cent, goods 16.53 per cent, imported food 13.63 per cent, and energy 9.90 per cent.
NBS also reported that urban inflation was 16.08 per cent year-on-year, with a monthly increase of 2.13 per cent, while rural inflation stood at 15.48 per cent year-on-year and 0.52 per cent month-on-month.
At the state level, Niger State recorded the highest headline inflation rate at 42.23 per cent, followed by Kogi (41.59 per cent) and the Federal Capital Territory (39.91 per cent). The lowest headline inflation rates were recorded in Imo (19.47 per cent), Ebonyi (20.79 per cent) and Katsina (21.87 per cent).
For food inflation, Kogi posted the highest year-on-year rate at 53.02 per cent, followed by Niger (43.83 per cent) and Benue (40.83 per cent), while Katsina (19.15 per cent), Rivers (23.81 per cent) and Imo (24.60 per cent) recorded the lowest food inflation rates.
