Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased to 23.18 percent year-on-year in February 2025 compared with January, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.
NBS stated that the inflation figure eased in February, a month after it rebased its Consumer Price Index to reflect changes in consumption patterns.
The Nigeria inflation figure was adjusted sharply from 34.80 percent in December to 24.48 percent in January, the first major drop in over a decade, after the National Bureau of Statistics’ rebasing exercise to update data with 2024 as the base year instead of 2009.
The food inflation rate in February 2025 was 23.51 percent on a year-on-year basis. This was 14.41percent lower compared to the rate recorded in February 2024 (37.92 percent).
NBS said the significant decline in the food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year.
However, on a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in February 2025 was 1.67 percent.
On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in February 2025 stood at 2.04 percent.
On a year-on-year basis, in February 2025, the urban inflation rate was 25.15 percent, showing 8.51 peecent points lower compared to the 33.66 percent recorded in February 2024.
On a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation rate was 2.40 percent in February 2025.
The corresponding twelve-month average for the urban inflation rate was 32.22% in February 2025. This was 4.28 percent points higher compared to the 27.93 percent reported in February 2024.
The Rural inflation rate in February 2025 was 19.89 percent on a year-on-year basis. This was 10.09 percent lower than the 29.99 percent recorded in February 2024. On a month-on-month basis, the rural inflation rate in February 2025 was 1.16 percent.
The corresponding 12-month average for the rural inflation rate in February 2025 was 27.94%. This was 3.33 percent points higher compared to the 24.61 percent recorded in February 2024.
Inflation hit repeated 28-year highs last year following President Bola Tinubu’s moves to end costly subsidies and devalue the naira after he came to power in 2023.
“In analysing price movements under this section, it should be noted that CPI is weighted by consumption expenditure patterns that differ across States and locations. Accordingly, the weight as signed to a particular food or non-food item may differ from State to State making interstate comparisons of consumption basket inadvisable and potentially misleading,” the NBS stated.
