Nigeria inflation eases for second month after data overhaul

By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's annual headline inflation eased to 23.18% in February, the country's statistics agency said on Monday, a month after it rebased its Consumer Price Index to reflect changes in consumption patterns.

The National Bureau of Statistics said the headline inflation rate had dropped from 31.7% a year earlier and was down 1.3% percentage points from January.

Food inflation, a key driver of the headline rate, stood at 23.51% year on year in February compared with 26.08% the month before.

Annual inflation fell sharply from 34.80% in December to 24.48% in January, the first major drop in over a decade, after the NBS made 2024 its base year instead of 2009 previously.

Inflation was at its highest in 28 years in 2024, after President Bola Tinubu's moves to end costly subsidies and devalue the naira currency.

At its first rate-setting meeting of the year last month, the central bank left its key interest rate at 27.5% after six hikes last year, citing falling inflation.

(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Editing by Bate Felix, Kirsten Donovan)

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