Eight Numbers That Explain Your September

Why fuel is up 64%, why your light bill grew without any price increase, and why your savings are quietly shrinking.

Government says prices are rising slower than before. Walk into any market and you will not feel it.

Our Consumer Finance Index tracks eight things that take money from a Nigerian household every month. In September, seven of the eight got harder. Here is what each number means and what is behind it.

Fuel: +64.6%

One year ago Dangote sold petrol at ₦820 a litre. Today it is ₦1,350.

That is the same refinery, the same price list, exactly one year apart. It is the biggest single jump on this index.

Most of it happened in the last three weeks. On 21 August the price was ₦1,165. Then ₦1,185. Then ₦1,200 on 26 August. Then ₦1,265 on 29 August. Then ₦1,350 on 12 September. Four increases in 22 days — ₦185 added to every litre.

Why: Not the naira. The naira actually got stronger this month, trading around ₦1,322 to the dollar, its best in two years. The problem is crude oil. Brent averaged nearly $99 a barrel and Bonny Light over $104. When crude rises, the cost of making petrol rises, and it reaches you at the pump.

At the filling station you are paying around ₦1,308 on average, with Abuja stations quoting ₦1,400 to ₦1,500. Diesel is ₦1,856. If you live far from Lagos or Port Harcourt, you pay more, because someone had to truck it to you.

Transport: +38.6%

A bus drop inside town cost ₦1,032 last year. Now it is ₦1,431.

Okada is worse — up 52% in a year, the fastest-rising way to move in Nigeria. Travelling between states now costs ₦9,700 on average, up 22%.

Why: Fuel, mostly. Plus bad roads that wear out vehicles, and the cost of spare parts.

One warning about this number.  It comes from May. It is the newest official figure available, and it was measured before petrol jumped ₦185. Your driver has already adjusted. The official number has not caught up yet.

Food: +20.3%

Food costs 20 kobo more in every naira than it did a year ago.

It has risen every single month this year. January 8.89%. February 12.12%. March 14.31%. April 16.06%. May 16.96%. June 17.52%. July 20.31%.

Look at July alone — food prices rose 5.56% in that one month. Not the year. The month.

Why:Farmers cannot reach their farms. Through July and August, armed groups spread into farming communities across Benue, Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara. People were kidnapped. Levies were demanded. In some places farming was banned outright. Maize, yam, rice, cassava and vegetables were not planted or not harvested — during the exact weeks that decide what the country eats.

Then whatever does get harvested has to be moved by lorry, on the fuel prices above.

The pain is not shared evenly. Adamawa recorded food inflation of 51.36%. Katsina 30.84%. Zamfara 30.65%. Meanwhile Nasarawa recorded 6.88%. Where you live decides how hard this year hits you.

Rent: +12.6%

Official figures say housing costs rose 12.6% in a year. Tenants will tell you a different story.

In Abuja's Nyanya, one tenant's rent moved from ₦400,000 to ₦750,000 — an 87.5% increase. In Lagos's Ajegunle, a retired civil servant saw his go from ₦400,000 to ₦900,000. Self-contained apartments that went for ₦250,000 to ₦300,000 now go for ₦500,000 to ₦600,000. Parts of Abuja have seen rents climb 40% to 60%.

Why the official number looks small: Government measures rent by spreading it across twelve months. But nobody pays rent monthly in Nigeria. You pay one year, sometimes two, in a single lump. Then the agent adds his commission, the agreement fee, the caution fee — sometimes 20 to 30% on top of the rent itself.

A bill is coming that would cap agency fees at 5% and limit advance payment to three months. It is still sitting in committee at the Lagos State House of Assembly. Nothing has changed yet.

Light: 0% on paper. Up to +257% in practice.

The tariff did not move. Band A is still ₦225 per unit. Government confirmed there is no planned increase.

So why did your bill grow?

Reclassification. If your area gets moved from Band B to Band A, your unit price goes from ₦63 to ₦225. That is a 257% increase — and no tariff was raised, so nobody announced anything. A school in Port Harcourt saw its bill go from ₦300,000 to ₦1.6 million after being moved to Band A. When the meter developed a fault, the estimated bill reached ₦2.3 million.

Paying for light you never received -Lagos's own electricity regulator checked how well distributors kept their Band A promise of 20 hours daily. One company managed 33.8%. Another managed 20%. The regulator concluded that well over half of Band A customers are paying premium rates without getting the service. In one Abuja estate residents reported four to six hours of light a day while spending ₦70,000 a week on generator fuel.

Estimated billing. If you have no meter, the distributor guesses your usage. NERC fined eight distribution companies over ₦628 million for charging unmetered customers above the legal cap.

The price stayed the same. The bill did not.

Data: 0% on paper. Less in the bundle.

No network has raised prices since February 2025, when the regulator approved a 50% increase. A plan that was ₦1,000 for 1.5GB became ₦1,500 for 2GB, and it has stayed there.

But subscribers say the bundle finishes faster than it used to.

The complaints have been loud enough that MTN held a public event in June called "Data on Trial" to defend itself, and another at Ahmadu Bello University in August. A Lagos lawyer is currently challenging the network over 708.55GB disappearing from an 800GB annual plan in 104 days. The House of Representatives accused the regulator of failing to hold operators to standard.

The networks say phones are to blame — automatic app updates, cloud backups running at night, video playing in high definition by default. The regulator partly agrees.

Our position: We cannot prove how much value was lost, and we will not pretend otherwise. But we score what you pay for what you get. If the bundle costs the same and lasts two weeks instead of four, that is a price increase whether or not anyone announced it.

Savings: your money loses 7 kobo in every naira

Banks pay about 8% a year on savings. Prices rise at 15.4%.

Put ₦100,000 in a savings account today. In a year the bank gives you ₦8,100. But the things you wanted to buy now cost ₦115,430. You are ₦7,000 poorer for having saved. Then government takes 10% tax on the interest.

Why: The Central Bank's rate is 26.5%, held steady twice this year after a small cut in February. That is a high rate. But the banks are not passing it to ordinary savers. Fixed deposits pay around 11% — better, still below prices.

If most of your money goes on food, it is worse. Food rose 20.3%. Against that, saving costs you 12 kobo in every naira.

Borrowing: 35.2%

The average highest lending rate is 35.17%, up from 32.68% in January.

Borrow ₦100,000 for a year and you may repay ₦135,000.

Why it matters more than the number suggests: A large company borrows at around 15%. An ordinary person borrows above 30%. Same country, same banks, more than double the price — because a company has collateral and audited accounts, and you have a salary slip.

The result is that people simply stopped borrowing. Consumer credit fell by more than ₦780 billion in one month, dropping to ₦3.03 trillion. Retail loans fell 42%.

Loan apps have filled the gap, charging 2.5% to 5% every month. That sounds small. Over a year it is not.

There is one hopeful sign. Bank surveys for the second quarter showed loan demand picking up and fewer people defaulting.

What it adds up to

The official inflation figure fell this month, to 15.43%. That is true and it is real.

But it is one number covering everything, including things most households never buy. Look at the three items that empty a working person's pocket first — food, fuel, transport — and every one of them went up.

That gap between the official number and the market is the story of September.

**One thing to watch:** The next official price figures land this week. Analysts expect food to rise again, to around 20.5%. Whatever the headline says, the fuel increase of the last three weeks is not in any of these numbers yet. It arrives in October, in your transport fare first.

About these figures

Food, transport and rent come from the National Bureau of Statistics. Savings and borrowing rates come from the Central Bank of Nigeria. Electricity figures come from NERC, the Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission and published tariff orders. Fuel prices come from refinery and depot pricing. Data figures come from NCC approvals and operator pricing.

The figures do not all arrive on the same day. Fuel changes overnight. Government price data arrives weeks late. Every number above carries the date it was measured.

Think we scored something wrongly? Tell us. We would rather be corrected than be confidently wrong.