Nigeria’s inflation rate slowed in August 2025, with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reporting a headline figure of 20.12 percent, down from 21.88 percent in July.
The data released on Monday show a 1.76 percentage point decline month-on-month, reflecting a moderation in the pace of rising prices. Compared with the same period a year earlier, increase was also notably lower — 12.03 percentage points below the 32.15 per cent recorded in August 2024.
The Bureau noted that the use of a different base year, November 2009 = 100, influenced the comparison.
On a monthly basis, inflation grew by 0.74 percent in August, well below the 1.99 percent increase posted in July, indicating that while prices are still rising, the pressure is easing.
Food inflation, which has been a major driver of overall price increases, also moderated. Annual food inflation stood at 21.87 percent in August, compared to 37.52 percent in the same month last year. The NBS attributed this sharp drop largely to the technical effect of the changed base year.
Month-on-month, food prices rose by 1.65 percent, down from 3.12 percent in July. Staple items such as imported and local rice, maize flour, guinea corn, millet, semolina, and soya milk recorded slower price growth.
For the 12 months ending August 2025, average food rise was 25.75 per cent, significantly below the 36.99 percent annual average seen a year earlier.
July inflation rate
In July, this newspaper reported that
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased for the second consecutive month to 21.88 per cent in July 2025, down by 0.34 percentage points from 22.22 per cent recorded in June.
The decline, based on a rebased Consumer Price Index (CPI) with 2024 as the base year, reflects a 2.5-point rise in the CPI to 125.9 points.
The statistics agency linked the slight food inflation slowdown to lower prices of vegetable oil, beans, local rice, maize flour, sorghum, wheat flour, and millet.
Core rise, which strips out volatile farm produce and energy, eased to 0.97% month-on-month from 2.46% in June.
