By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo
ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased to 23.18% year-on-year in February compared with January, its statistics agency said on Monday, a month after it rebased its Consumer Price Index to reflect changes in consumption patterns.
Inflation has fallen sharply from 34.80% in December to 24.48% in January, the first major drop in over a decade, after the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) rebasing exercise to update data with 2024 as the base year instead of 2009.
Inflation hit repeated 28-year highs last year, spurred by President Bola Tinubu’s moves to end costly subsidies and devalue the naira currency after he came to power in 2023.
At its first rate-setting meeting of the year, the central bank left its key interest rate unchanged after six hikes last year, citing foreign exchange stability and falling inflation.
(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Editing by Bate Felix)
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