Nigeria’s food inflation rate climbed to 20.31 percent year-on-year in July 2026, its highest reading in months, even as the country’s broader headline inflation figure continued its recent downward drift, a divergence that is putting fresh strain on household budgets across the country.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) Consumer Price Index report for July, released Monday, food inflation rose significantly by 2.79 percentage points to 20.31 percent in July from 17.52 percent in June, marking the fifth consecutive month of increases since March 2026.
The 20 percent threshold in food inflation had last been breached in February 2021, underscoring just how sharply food prices have accelerated in recent months.
On a year-on-year basis, the figure still represents an improvement from a year earlier: food inflation stood at 20.31 percent year-on-year in July 2026, down from 26.20 percent recorded in July 2025. But the month-on-month trend tells a more troubling story for consumers.
Food inflation increased to 5.56 percent in July from 3.75 percent in June, a 1.82 percentage-point jump, a sign that prices at the market stall are rising faster right now than the annual comparison suggests.
The NBS attributed the surge to changes in the average prices of crayfish, fresh pepper, fresh onions, fresh carrots, rice, water yam, fresh tomatoes, garri, plantain, beef, eggs, guinea corn, ginger, and plantain flour, among others.
The pain is not evenly distributed across the country. BusinessDay’s analysis of the report showed food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Adamawa at 51.36 percent, followed by Katsina at 30.84 percent and Zamfara at 30.65 percent, while Borno, at -0.31 percent, Nasarawa at 6.88 percent, and Kebbi at 12.50 percent recorded the slowest rises.
Every month, food inflation was highest in Adamawa (17.02 percent), Lagos (13.48 percent), and Borno (13.26 percent), while Jigawa (-3.68 percent), Kebbi (-3.67 percent), and Bauchi (-1.85 percent) recorded the slowest rise.
The food price surge stands in contrast to the broader inflation trend. Nigeria’s headline inflation rate declined to 15.43 percent in July 2026, a 0.48 percentage-point decrease from the 15.91 percent recorded in June, and a significant decline from the 24.94 percent recorded in July 2025, following the recent rebasing of the CPI to a 2024 base year and a 2023 weight reference period.
That eased headline figure was driven largely by cooling core prices: core inflation, which excludes volatile agricultural produce and energy, decelerated to 14.97 percent in July from 15.92 percent in June.
Yet even the headline figure carries a caveat. Despite the decline in the year-on-year inflation rate, the CPI itself rose to 145.3 points in July from 143.0 points in June, a 2.2-point increase during the month, indicating that prices, in absolute terms, kept climbing.
The report also revealed a widening gap between city and countryside. Rural inflation stood at 13.77 percent year-on-year in July, below the urban rate for the period, with rural month-on-month inflation rising to 0.78 percent in July from 0.52 percent in June.
The urban inflation rate, by comparison, stood at 16.12 percent year-on-year in July, though on a month-on-month basis urban inflation actually eased to 1.90 percent in July, down from 2.13 percent in June, meaning rural households bore the brunt of the month’s fresh price pressure even as city dwellers saw some relief.
The figures land awkwardly for policymakers. Nigeria’s food inflation rose in July despite a series of interventions by the federal government aimed at boosting domestic production, reducing input costs, and easing pressure on consumers, a divergence that has renewed questions about the reach and effectiveness of those measures.
For millions of Nigerian households already grappling with a high cost of living, the message from Monday’s CPI report is a mixed one: the macro numbers are moving in the right direction, but the food on the table remains stubbornly and increasingly expensive.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
Nigeria’s headline inflation may be easing, but that’s cold comfort at the dinner table. Food inflation jumped to 20.31% in July, its fifth straight monthly rise and the highest level since food prices last breached 20% back in February 2021, driven by climbing costs for staples like rice, tomatoes, onions, garri, and plantain.
The key takeaway: the cost of living crisis for ordinary Nigerians isn’t over; it’s just shifted from a broad price surge to one concentrated squarely on food, hitting rural households and states like Adamawa, Katsina, and Zamfara hardest.
