The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) raised interest rates to 13.5 percent for the first time in two and a half years. CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele explained the hike to the media after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Abuja. He claims that raising interest rates will help control inflation and stimulate the economy.
According to Emefiele, the MPC is concerned that “aggressive accumulation of inflation” will occur, and in order to prevent this, the MPC “immediately proceeded to check the coming inflation by hiking the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) by 150 basis points.”
