The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria has voted to increase the benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points to 18 percent.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, revealed this while reading the communiqué of the second MPC meeting of the year.

The governor stated the slight increase is to mitigate the effect of inflation and other economic issues.

The MPR has been on the rise since April 2022, when it was 11.50 per cent.