Nigeria’s inflation drops to 21.88% in July, food prices continue to climb
By Jeffrey Agbo
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased to 21.88 percent in July 2025, down from 22.22 percent in June, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The data, released on Friday, marks the fourth instance of disinflation recorded in 2025.
In the publication, the NBS noted that the July 2025 headline inflation represented a “decrease of 0.34% compared to the June 2025 headline inflation rate”.
“On a year-on-year basis, the Headline inflation rate was 11.52% lower than the rate recorded in July 2024 (33.40%),” the report stated.
Month-on-month, inflation ticked higher, with the NBS revealing that the rate in July stood at 1.99 percent — 0.31 percentage points above the 1.68 percent recorded in June.
“This means that in July 2025, the rate of increase in the average price level was higher than the rate of increase in the average price level in June 2025,” the bureau explained.
The NBS identified food and non-alcoholic beverages, restaurants and accommodation services, and transportation as the largest contributors to overall price growth.
Food Inflation Hits 22.74% Year-on-Year
The report showed that food inflation in July rose to 22.74 percent year-on-year, up from 21.97 percent the previous month. This figure is still 16.79 percentage points lower than the 39.53 percent recorded in July 2024.
“The significant decline in the annual food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year,” the agency clarified.
On a month-to-month basis, food inflation stood at 3.12 percent in July, slightly below June’s 3.25 percent.
“The decrease can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of Vegetable Oil, Bean (White), Rice Local, Maize Flour, Guinea Corn (Sorghum), Wheat Flour, Millet Whole grain, etc.,” the NBS said.
The average annual food inflation rate for the twelve months ending July 2025 was 26.97 percent, down 9.39 percentage points from the 36.36 percent recorded in the corresponding period of 2024.
