The headline inflation rate in Nigeria eased to 23.18 percent year-on-year in February 2025, compared with January’s 24.48 percent.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported this on Monday, a month after it rebased its Consumer Price Index (CPI) to reflect changes in consumption patterns.
The NBS stated: *”In February 2025, the headline inflation rate eased to 23.18% relative to the January 2025 headline inflation rate of 24.48%. Looking at the movement, the February 2025 headline inflation rate showed a decrease of 1.30% compared to the January 2025 headline inflation rate.
“On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 8.52% lower than the rate recorded in February 2024 (31.70%). This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) decreased in February 2025 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., February 2024), though with a different base year, November 2009 = 100.
“Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in February 2025 stood at 2.04%.”*
According to the NBS, the food inflation rate in February 2025 was 23.51 percent on a year-on-year basis, showing a decrease of 14.41 percentage points compared to 37.92 percent recorded in February 2024.
It noted that the significant decline in the food inflation figure was technically due to the change in the base year.
However, on a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in February 2025 stood at 1.67 percent. Compared to January 2025, there was an observed decline in the average prices of food items such as yam tuber, potatoes, soya beans, maize/cornmeal flour, cassava, and bambara beans (dried).
The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending February 2025 over the previous twelve-month average was 34.74 percent, which was 4.67 percentage points higher compared with the average annual rate of 30.07 percent recorded in February 2024.
Inflation has fallen sharply from 34.80 percent in December 2024 to 24.48 percent in January 2025. This marks the first major drop in over a decade, following the NBS rebasing exercise to update data with 2024 as the base year instead of 2009.
Inflation spiked to 28-year highs last year after President Bola Tinubu removed the fuel subsidy and ended the multiple exchange rate system shortly after assuming office in 2023.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), at its first Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in 2025, left its key interest rate unchanged after six hikes last year, citing foreign exchange stability and falling inflation.
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