Nigeria’s headline inflation rate fell to 23.18% in February 2025, down from 24.48% in January 2025, according to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released on Monday. The NBS highlighted a 1.30% decrease in the headline inflation rate compared to the previous month.

The report stated, “In February 2025, the headline inflation rate dropped to 23.18% from January 2025’s rate of 24.48%, reflecting a decline of 1.30%.” On a year-on-year basis, the February 2025 rate was 8.52% lower than the 31.70% recorded in February 2024, indicating a significant slowdown in inflation compared to the same period last year. The NBS also noted that the month-on-month headline inflation rate for February 2025 was 2.04%.

Regarding food inflation, the NBS reported a year-on-year rate of 23.51% in February 2025, a notable 14.41% decrease from the 37.92% recorded in February 2024. The Bureau attributed this sharp drop to a technical adjustment in the base year. On a month-on-month basis, food inflation in February 2025 stood at 1.67%. The report pointed to a decline in the average prices of key food items such as yam tubers, potatoes, soybeans, maize/cornmeal flour, cassava, and dried Bambara beans compared to January 2025.

Over the 12 months ending February 2025, the average annual food inflation rate was 34.74%, up by 4.67 percentage points from the 30.07% recorded for the same period ending February 2024.