Nigeria’s inflation rate continued its downward trend, declining to 23.18 percent in February 2025 from 24.48 percent recorded in January, driven by a reduction in food prices.
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Monday, indicated a 1.30 percent decline on a month-on-month basis and an 8.52 percent drop on a year-on-year basis.
Similarly, food inflation decreased by 2.57 percent month-on-month, settling at 23.51 percent in February from 26.08 percent in January.
On a year-on-year basis, food inflation dropped significantly from 37.92 percent in February 2024 to 23.51 percent in February 2025.
The decline in inflation figures has been linked to the rebasing of CPI data in January. The report highlighted that the drop in food inflation was influenced by lower prices of staple food items, including yam tubers, potatoes, soybeans, flour of maize/cornmeal, cassava, and dried Bambara beans.
The report stated, “The food inflation rate in February 2025 was 23.51 percent on a year-on-year basis. This was 14.41% lower compared to the rate recorded in February 2024 (37.92 percent). 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. Compared to the month of January 2025, there was an observed decline in the average prices of food items like yam tubers, potatoes, soybeans, flour of maize/cornmeal, cassava, Bambara beans (dried), etc.
“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 change recorded in February 2024 (30.07 percent).”
Nigeria’s inflation had previously dropped in January following the rebasing of the CPI.
