Nigeria adds 220 items to consumer price index basket in first rebasing since 2009

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has added 220 items to the basket of goods and services for the consumer price index (CPI), which is being rebased to reflect “the current inflationary pressures”.

The number of items in the basket has increased to 960 from 740, with the weight (household expenditure) and price reference periods changed to 2023 and 2024 from 2009, according to Ayo Andrew Anthony, head of prices statistics division at the NBS.

He said on Thursday that special indexes for services, energy, farm produce and goods, both national and states, will be computed in the rebased CPI set to be released this month.

The CPI rebasing “entails bringing the weight and price reference periods closer to the current period to reflect the current consumption pattern,” he said at a sensitisation workshop in Lagos, adding that it would be conducted every five years.

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The last time the country’s CPI was rebased was in 2009, according to Anthony.

The workshop, hosted in Lagos by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, in partnership with the statistics bureau, brought together stakeholders from the public and private sectors to deepen their understanding of the rebasing process, methodology, and implications for Nigeria’s economy.