By Jemimah Wellington, JKNewsMedia Correspondent
HEADLINE INFLATION slowed to 14.45 percent in November 2025, extending the steady easing seen throughout the year and bringing the figure below the 15 percent target set by President Bola Tinubu.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced the decline on Monday in its consumer price index report, describing November as the eighth consecutive month of falling headline inflation in 2025.
The bureau also said the latest figure represents a drop from the 16.05 percent recorded in October 2025.
Data cited by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) show the November rate as the lowest recorded in five years, returning inflation to levels last seen during the COVID nineteen pandemic period when headline inflation stood in the 14 percent range in October 2020.
On a year-on-year basis, the bureau said the November 2025 headline inflation rate was 20.15 percent lower than the rate recorded in November 2024, which stood at 34.60 percent adding that this confirmed a clear year on year decrease when compared with the same month of the preceding year.
“This shows that the Headline inflation rate year on year basis decreased in November 2025 compared to the same month in the preceding year that is November 2024,” the bureau said.
The report also showed a slight acceleration on a month-on-month basis as the NBS added that the headline inflation rate for November 2025 stood at 1.22 percent, which was 0.29 percent higher than the 0.93 percent recorded in October 2025.
“This means that in November 2025, the rate of increase in the average price level was higher than the rate of increase in the average price level in October 2025,” the agency said.
Food inflation followed a similar trend of year-on-year moderation.
NBS reported that the food inflation rate for November 2025 was 11.08 percent on a year-on-year basis noting that the statistics firm said this figure was 28.85 percent lower than the 39.93 percent recorded in November 2024.
It attributed the sharp annual decline in food inflation to technical factors rather than immediate price behaviour as “The significant decline in the annual food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year,” the bureau said.
Month-on-month food inflation, however, rose in November whilst the agency reported a food inflation rate of 1.13 percent for the month, describing it as an increase of 1.5 percent when compared with October 2025, which recorded a negative 0.37 percent.
NBS further said the increase reflected higher average prices across several food items which included dried tomatoes, cassava tuber, shelled periwinkle, grounded pepper, eggs, crayfish, unshelled melon known as egusi, oxtail and fresh onions.
Beyond the monthly figures, the report also provided an annual average view.
The NBS said the average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending November 2025, measured against the previous twelve-month average, stood at 19.68 percent. This figure, the bureau said, was 18.99 percentage points lower than the average annual rate of change recorded in November 2024, which was 38.67 percent.
The report highlighted notable differences across states. On a year on year basis, food inflation was highest in Kogi at 17.83 percent, followed by Ogun at 16.52 percent and Rivers at 16.11 percent.
At the other end of the scale, the slowest rises in food inflation were recorded in Imo at 3.52 percent, Katsina at 3.65 percent and Akwa Ibom at 4.52 percent.
Month on month movements showed sharper variations across states. with food inflation in November 2025 bein- highest in Yobe at 9.52 percent, Katsina at 6.61 percent and Ondo at 6.04 percent.
By contrast, Imo recorded a decline of minus 6.49 percent, Nasarawa fell by minus 5.48 percent and Enugu declined by minus 2.54 percent on a month-on-month basis.
