Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 15.38 per cent in March 2026, up from 15.06 per cent in February, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

This marks the first increase in 12 months, following a steady decline that began in April 2025.

The NBS disclosed the figure in its Consumer Price Index report released on Wednesday.

“The Headline inflation rate rose to 15.38 per cent, up from 15.06 per cent in February 2026 and stood 27.35 per cent in the same month of the preceding year (March 2025),” NBS said.

The bureau said the headline inflation rate increased by 0.32 percentage points compared with the February 2026 figure.

“However, on a month-on-month basis, the Headline inflation rate in March 2026 was 4.18 per cent, which was 2.17 per cent higher than the rate recorded in February 2026 (2.01 per cent,” NBS said.

” This means that in March 2026, the rate of increase in the average price level was higher than the rate of increase in the average price level in February 2026.”

The NBS said food inflation stood at 14.31 percent year-on-year in March 2026.

It also noted that this is lower than the 25.22 per cent recorded in March 2025.

“However, on a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in March 2026 was 4.17 per cent, down 0.52 percentage points from February 2026 (4.69 per cent),” NBS said.

The report stated that in March 2026, year-on-year food inflation was highest in Bayelsa (33.35 per cent), Sokoto (28.02 per cent), and Adamawa (21.67 per cent), while Kano (4.29 percent), Oyo (4.86 per cent), and Katsina (7.48 percent) recorded the slowest increases.

On a month-on-month basis, the NBS said food inflation was highest in Sokoto (11.78 percent), Niger (8.59 per cent), and Gombe (8.10 per cent).
It added that Katsina (0.09 percent), Ogun (0.77 per cent), and Adamawa (1.30 per cent) recorded declines in food inflation.