By Joke Kujenya
A significant drop in Nigeria’s inflation rate was recorded in January 2025, falling to 24.48% from 34.80% in December 2024, the newly released Consumer Price Index (CPI) report has shown.
This shift follows the rebasing of the CPI, which aims to align Nigeria’s inflation data with global standards.
Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, the Statistician General of the Federation and CEO of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), explained that the country’s CPI had last been rebased in 2009.
The newly updated CPI now reflects a 2024 base year, introducing modern consumption patterns while excluding outdated products.
He notes that this rebase is intended to enhance the precision of inflation measurement, providing more accurate insights into current economic trends.
Food inflation fell to 26.08% year-on-year in January, down from 39.84% in December 2024. Urban inflation stood at 26.09%, whereas rural inflation was recorded at 22.15%.
Core inflation, excluding food and energy prices, reached 22.59%.
Adeniran also noted improvements in CPI methodology, including the adoption of the latest classification methods, to better capture inflationary trends.
He adds that the updated CPI is expected to help strengthen economic policy decisions as this drop in inflation arrives whilst the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) prepares for its first Monetary Policy Committee meeting of 2025, set for February 19 and 20.
Last November, the committee had raised interest rates to 27.50% in an effort to curb inflation, he stated.
