A general view of Tejuosho Market in Yaba, in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, Nigeria, April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Sodiq Adelakun

ABUJA, April 15 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s headline consumer inflation edged up to 24.23% year-on-year in March from 23.18% in February, its statistics agency said on Tuesday.

A report by the National Bureau of Statistics showed price rises for food and non-alcoholic beverages were the biggest contributor to annual inflation.

Inflation in Africa’s most populous country soared to repeated 28-year peaks last year, spurred by President Bola Tinubu’s moves to curb costly subsidies and devalue the naira currency after he came to power in 2023.

A rebasing exercise by the statistics bureau, in which the items in its reference basket were reweighted and the comparison period was updated from 2009 to 2024, saw the annual inflation rate fall from 34.80% in December to 24.48% in January.

(Reporting by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo; Additional reporting by Mohd Edrees and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Alexander Winning)