The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has warned that Nigeria’s April inflation outlook points to a fragile disinflation process, noting that the conditions remain severe for households and businesses in the country.

The think tank made this known in a statement signed by its Chief Executive Officer, Muda Yusuf, on Friday, noting that inflation conditions remain severe from a welfare and business cost perspective.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its April inflation report on Friday, stated that headline inflation rose marginally from 15.38 per cent in March to 15.69 per cent in April.

CPPE said the trend indicates that although inflationary pressures remain elevated, the pace of acceleration was relatively moderate.

It highlighted some positive signals in short-term inflation trends, pointing to broad-based moderation across key month-on-month indicators.

The NBS report also shows that headline month-on-month inflation declined by 2.05 per cent, food inflation eased by 0.54 per cent, core inflation declined by 3.0 per cent, while urban inflation moderated by 1.3 per cent.

“More encouraging, however, was the moderation in the month-on-month inflation metrics across virtually all major indicators,” the think tank stated.

It also showed that rural inflation dropped sharply by 3.9 per cent, which CPPE said suggests a weakening in short-term inflationary momentum.

Warning

Despite this improvement, CPPE warned that inflationary conditions remain severe for households and businesses. It noted that food inflation stood at 16.06 per cent, while core inflation remained elevated at 15.86 per cent.

“The dominant inflation drivers continue to be food, transportation, energy products, healthcare and restaurant services, which together accounted for about 87 per cent of the inflation pressure recorded in April.

“These are essential expenditure items which absorb the bulk of household income, particularly among low-income Nigerians,” CPPE said.

The think tank attributed rising inflation risks partly to geopolitical tensions involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, which have increased volatility in global oil markets and pushed up energy costs.

The group stressed that Nigeria’s inflation challenge remains structural and supply-driven, arguing that monetary tightening alone is insufficient to address the underlying cost pressures in the economy.

“The conflict has triggered renewed volatility in the global oil market, pushing up crude oil prices and transmitting higher energy costs into the domestic economy.

“Rising petrol, diesel and gas prices are fuelling transportation, logistics and production costs across sectors, with significant pass-through effects on food prices and overall consumer inflation.

“This further underscores the structural and supply-side nature of Nigeria’s inflation challenge. Monetary tightening alone cannot resolve inflation driven by energy costs, logistics inefficiencies, food supply disruptions and weak infrastructure conditions,” it stated.

Solutions

The organisation advised that additional monetary tightening could worsen financing costs for businesses, weaken investment, and further constrain productivity growth.

It called for a stronger focus on supply-side reforms to address production and distribution bottlenecks.

READ ALSO: FG’s 2026 fiscal measures favour local production but pose risks for importers – CPPE

CPPE called on governments at all levels to intensify measures to reduce energy costs, while also advising businesses to prioritise energy efficiency and dynamic pricing models.

“The policy priority should therefore shift more decisively towards supply-side interventions. Governments at both federal and state levels should intensify measures to reduce energy costs, improve transportation infrastructure, strengthen food supply systems, enhance trade facilitation and support domestic productivity.

“For businesses, the operating environment remains extremely challenging. Firms should prioritise energy efficiency, dynamic pricing models, consumer segmentation and affordability-driven product strategies, including smaller pack sizes, as consumers become increasingly price-sensitive and discretionary spending weakens,” CPPE stated.

Working from home has its own perils. Pets can be demanding, your back aches from hours at a desk, or you simply forget to move. There are a few apps that nudge you to move around or indicate that you’re not sitting in an ideal position, but they’re easy to dismiss.

I’ve spent the better part of a decade at a home desk, iterating on the setup as I go — gaming chair, lumbar support, the works. None of it guarantees good posture.

Then I came across Isa, a desk device from German startup Deep Care that takes a different approach entirely. It tracks posture, hydration, light, sound, and movement. And it does all of it without a camera or an internet connection, which, in an era of always-on surveillance, is a meaningful differentiator.

Here’s how it works and what’s inside. Isa has a 5.5-inch IPS HD screen and looks like a table clock. It is powered by USB-C; the company supplies a power unit with it, but you can use any of your existing chargers too, as it has a power consumption rating of roughly 2.45W.

The key sensor for the device is the Time-of-Flight (ToF) 3D depth sensor on the front — the same technology used in facial recognition and some smartphone cameras — that tracks posture and movement. It also enables beta features, such as counting the number of times you’ve had water or other liquids. The company said that the sensor works in the range of 0.15 meters to 1.8 meters. That means if the device is sitting on your desk, it can measure your movement, even when you stand up and move about. It also packs several other sensors: a ToF 1D sensor, a gyroscope, a barometer, a light sensor, a sound level sensor, a CO₂/VoC sensor, and a temperature and humidity sensor.

Getting started is straightforward — the device asks for a few details about you and your work routine. I found it strange that there was no option to set the device to India time (or any other Asian time zone). The company said Isa currently supports only EU and US time zones. Fair enough for now — but broader time zone support, or even a simple world clock, feels like a basic expectation for a desk device.

On the screen, Isa displays your posture with a squircle (a rounded square) ring that fills or empties based on how well you’re sitting, while a water-tank-style widget tracks your drinking. If you are not sitting in the correct posture, the indicator will turn yellow. The Apple Watch-style ring is a surprisingly effective nudge — when I see yellow or red, I straighten up almost instinctively.

The device vibrates to alert you if you’ve been slouching for too long, and I’m okay with that kind of mild shaming. That alert also indicates if you are leaning far too forward or back and helps you correct your stance.

A similar widget tracks movement, and if you have been stationary for a while, Isa suggests you get up, with on-device guided exercises to follow. When you return to your desk after a break, the movement tracker resets.

Deep Care chose not to include a cameras, which helps with privacy, but it comes with trade-offs.

If a bottle or some other object sits between you and the sensor, it may read that as a person and log you as stationary. Pets or housemates passing by can trigger the sensor, too. Isa usually figures out that you’ve stepped away and goes to a digital clock display, but I would have liked a manual button to tell it I’m not at the desk so it stops tracking.

Because of the sensor-only approach, the device occasionally told me I’d been stationary for too long when I’d been sitting for under half an hour. These are minor inconveniences. On balance, the device made me check my posture more often than I used to, and the exercise suggestions are truly useful.

To process all these features, the device uses a quad-core 2 GHz processor. The device can connect to Wi-Fi for software updates, but you can turn it off at any time.

Deep Care was founded by three former Bosch employees and initially sold Isa directly to businesses. It recently expanded to consumers — a shift that signals confidence in the retail market for workplace wellness hardware, and a test of whether a subscription model layered onto premium hardware can find a mainstream audience.

Isa is priced at €299 ($354) with two subscription tiers. The core plan (€4.99 per month) gives you access to posture tracking, healthy sitting habit tracking, drinking habit detection, and its exercise library. The Pro plan(€7.99 per month) lets you track light, noise, and CO2 levels for a healthy working environment.

The company plans to use Isa’s sensor suite to venture into mental health-related tracking. It claims that by using signals like posture, head movement, and chest movement, the device can measure breathing patterns. Plus, paired with environmental data like noise, light levels, and CO2 level, the company wants to introduce a stress-related score.

Even if you skip the mental health features, Isa is a solid device for anyone serious about posture and movement. It isn’t cheap, and the subscription adds to the long-term cost. But if you or someone you know works from home and has been meaning to do something about their desk habits, it’s one of the more thoughtful options out there.