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For the third consecutive time Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has raised the interest rate from 18 percent to 18.5 percent.

The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced the decision on Wednesday after a meeting of the policy-setting committee of the bank known as the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the CBN headquarters in Abuja.

This is coming a week after the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the country’s inflation rate for the month of April hit 22.22% surpassing last month’s rate of 22.04%.

According to the report, in April 2023, the headline inflation rate rose to 22.22% relative to March 2023 headline inflation rate which was 22.04%. Looking at the movement, the April 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.18% points when compared to March 2023 headline inflation rate.

ABUJA BUSINESS REPORTS NEWSPAPER & MAGAZINE recalls that in January, the CBN raised the interest rate from 16.5% to 17.5 percent to tame inflation.

The MPC raised the monetary policy rate by 100 basis points to 17.5% and kept the asymmetric corridor at +100/-700 basis points around the MPR.

Shortly after the January increase, the CBN again in March increased the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 18. percent before it raise the rate yet again on Wednesday to 18.5 percent.