Nigeria’s headline inflation rate slowed slightly last month, data showed on Thursday, but it remains stuck around 15% in annual terms and is a concern for many citizens months before a national election.
Consumer inflation was 14.63% year-on-year in September, down from 15.39% in August, the National Bureau of Statistics said.
Food inflation was largely unchanged at 19.59% in September, up from 19.57% in August.
Stubborn price pressures are a test for President Bola Tinubu ahead of January’s election, when he will seek a final four-year term.
“The common man is suffering. Everything has skyrocketed,” Michael Udoariri, a 44-year-old who works in an insurance company and is a father of three, told Reuters at a bus stop in Lagos while waiting to go to work.
He said soaring fuel costs had forced him to stop driving and switch to public transport.
The central bank surprised investors last month with a 350-basis-point interest rate cut to 23%, saying that market rates had diverged from its benchmark rate and that previous tightening measures had proven effective.
Tinubu took office in 2023 and implemented a series of economic reforms, such as cutting petrol subsidies and devaluing the currency, to boost economic growth and bolster public finances.
But those reforms also spurred a cost-of-living crisis.
Economic growth has picked up, coming in at about 4.4% year-on-year in the second quarter, but it remains well below the 7% annual rate Tinubu has targeted by 2027.