Nigeria’s annual inflation rose for a third straight month to 15.93% in May, driven by food prices, even as the monthly pace of increases eased.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Monday that headline inflation climbed from 15.69% in April. Food did most of the damage. Food and non alcoholic beverages were the largest single contributor, adding 6.38 percentage points to the rate, ahead of restaurants and transport.
The pressure is concentrated where households feel it most. The bureau tied the rise to costlier staples including onions, maize, tomatoes, pepper, yam, cassava products and crayfish, the everyday items that fill Nigerian markets and kitchens.
There was one sign of relief, but it is thinner than it looks. Month on month, headline prices rose 1.75% in May, slower than April’s 2.13%, pointing to a gentler pace of increases. Underneath, the trend ran the other way. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy, sped up on a monthly basis to 1.94% from 1.03%, a sign of stronger underlying price pressure.
Step back, though, and the longer trend looks far healthier. May’s 15.93% sits well below the 26.06% recorded a year earlier, part of a steady cooling helped by a rebasing of the consumer price index. The revised index now uses 2024 as its base year.
For policymakers, the third straight monthly rise complicates any move toward cheaper credit. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) held its benchmark rate at 26.50% at its most recent meeting, keeping borrowing costs high to bear down on prices, and the latest reading gives Governor Olayemi Cardoso little reason to ease.
What comes next rests largely on food supply and the cost of moving it. Transport added 1.70 percentage points to inflation in May, so any fresh jump in fuel or freight would feed straight back into prices. For Nigerian households, where food takes the biggest share of spending, real relief still looks some way off.
