The recently published Consumer Price Index (CPI) report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) yesterday shows that the Nigerian headline inflation moderated slightly by 5 basis points to 15.10% year-on-year in January 2026, down from 15.15% in December 2025. It’s worth noting that in December, the NBS updated its inflation framework. The new methodology uses the average CPI for the entire 2024 year as the reference base, rather than a single prior month.

This smooths out base distortions and prevents artificial YoY spikes. Consequently, the small change in headline YoY between December and January partly reflects methodological stabilisation rather than a genuine slowdown or rigidity in actual price movements.