Nigeria’s headline inflation rate \u200bslowed slightly last month, data showed this Thursday, but it \u200cremains stuck around 15% in annual terms and a concern for many citizens months before a national election.<\/p>\n
Consumer inflation was at 14.63% year-on-year in \u200bSeptember, down from 15.39% in August, the National Bureau \u200bof Statistics said.<\/p>\n
Food inflation was little changed at 19.59% \u2060in September from 19.57% in August.<\/p>\n
Stubborn price pressures are a \u200btest for President Bola Tinubu ahead of January’s election, when he \u200bwill seek a final four-year term.<\/p>\n
“The common man is suffering. Everything has sky-rocketed,” Michael Udoariri, a 44-year-old who works in an insurance company and is \u200ba father of three, told Reuters at a bus stop \u200bin Lagos while waiting to go to work.<\/p>\n
He said soaring fuel costs had \u200cforced \u2060him to stop driving and switch to public transport.<\/p>\n
The central bank surprised investors last month with a 350-basis-point interest rate cut to 23%, saying market rates had diverged from its benchmark rate \u200band previous tightening \u200bmeasures had proven \u2060effective.<\/p>\n
Tinubu took office in 2023 and made a series of economic reforms like cutting petrol subsidies \u200band devaluing the currency to try to lift \u200beconomic growth \u2060and bolster public finances.<\/p>\n
But those reforms also spurred a cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n
Economic growth has picked up, coming in at about 4.4% year-on-year in the \u2060second \u200bquarter, but it remains well below \u200bthe 7% annual rate Tinubu has targeted by 2027.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13483,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-48115","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Food inflation was little changed at 19.59% \u2060in September from 19.57% in August.","published_date":"","news_description":"Food inflation was little changed at 19.59% \u2060in September from 19.57% in August.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48117,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/48115\/revisions\/48117"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=48115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}