Eating healthy now costs 92% of minimum wage in Nigeria's most expensive state (see full list)

• Ekiti, Imo and Abia rank as Nigeria's most expensive states for maintaining a basic healthy diet.

• In Ekiti, healthy food costs consume 92.6% of the ₦70,000 national minimum wage.

• Analysts link rising costs in the South-East to supply chain disruptions, transport costs and infrastructure challenges.

Eating healthy in Nigeria has become a luxury most workers simply cannot afford and new data shows just how bad things have gotten.

Following an analysis drawing from National Bureau of Statistics figures for March 2026, the cost of a basic healthy diet now consumes more than 80% of the N70,000 national minimum wage in eight states across the country. 

That leaves the average formal sector worker with less than N14,000, sometimes far less, to cover rent, transport, electricity and healthcare for the rest of the month.

Ekiti State tops the list. A healthy monthly diet there costs ₦64,821, swallowing 92.6% of the minimum wage before a worker has paid for anything else. Imo and Abia follow closely, at 90.9% and 87.2% respectively.

All five South-East states feature in the nine most expensive in the country for food costs, a concentration that points to something structural.

Here is where each state falls:

• Ekiti - ₦64,821 (92.6% of minimum wage)

• Imo - ₦63,612 (90.9%)

• Abia - ₦61,070 (87.2%)

• Lagos - ₦59,210 (84.6%)

• Ebonyi - ₦58,621 (83.7%)

• Bayelsa - ₦58,187 (83.1%)

• Enugu - ₦56,327 (80.5%)

• Osun - ₦56,079 (80.1%)

• Anambra - ₦54,684 (78.1%)

The data points to a combination of factors driving food costs in the region. Weekly sit-at-home orders enforced by non-state actors have disrupted agricultural supply chains, cutting off rural farmers from urban markets at least one day every week. 

Illegal checkpoints on major routes force transport operators to pay repeatedly, and those costs are passed directly to consumers. Infrastructure failures, including the washout of key roads, have cut off farming communities entirely.

The result is that Ebonyi, historically one of Nigeria's most productive agricultural states, now ranks among the most expensive places in the country to eat.

Nutritionists warn that the figures point toward a wave of malnutrition across the region. For workers on the minimum wage, the N70,000 increase celebrated last year has effectively been cancelled out by food inflation before it was fully felt.

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