Nigeria’s inflation eases to 15.15 % after calculation rejig to show economic reality

Nigeria’s inflation rate, year-on-year stood at 15.15 percent in December, relative to the November 2025 headline inflation rate (17.33%), the National Bureau of Statistics report has revealed.

The report which was released on Thursday showed that on a year-on-year basis, the December Headline inflation rate was 19.65 percent lower than the rate recorded in

December 2024 (34.80 percent). This shows that the Headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) decreased in December 2025 compared to the same month in the preceding year ( December 2024).

On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in December 2025 was 0.54 percent, which is 0.69 percent less than the rate recorded in November 2025 (1.22 percent). This means that in December 2025, the rate of increase in the average price level was lower than in November 2025.

At the divisional level, the three major contributors to the headline inflation were Food and non-alcoholic Beverages: 6.06 percent, Restaurants & Accommodation Services: 1.96 percent, and Transport: 1.62 percent; while the least contributors were Recreation, Sport, and Culture: 0.05 percent, Alcoholic Beverages, Tobacco, and Narcotics: 0.05 percent, and Insurance and Financial Services: 0.07.

Read also: What to know about Nigeria’s 15.15% inflation rate for December

The report also showed that food inflation rate in December 2025 was 10.84 percent on a year-on-year basis, whike on a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in December 2025 was -0.36 percent, down by 1.49 percent compared to November 2025 (1.13%).

The decrease, according to the bureau can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of Tomatoes, Garri, Eggs, Potatoes, Carrots, Millet, Vegetables, Plantain, Beans, Wheat Grain, Grounded Pepper, Onions (Fresh), among others.

Also, core Inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce and energy, stood at 18.63 percent in December 2025 on a year-on-year basis and on a month-on-month basis, the core inflation rate was 0.58 percent in December 2025.

The inflation rate of the sub-indices for December 2025 shows that only Energy increased significantly (2.74 percent), while others indices decreased, for example, Farm Produce (-0.41 percent), Services (0.15 percent) and Goods (0.64 percent).

Commenting on the report, Adeyemi Adeniran, Statistician general of the federation said that following the completion of the recent rebasing exercise, the CPI report is centred on a new CPI base year of 2024 and a weight reference period of 2023.

He explained that the December 2025 year-on-year Headline inflation rate, including all other sub-indexes were obtained through the maximisation of the index reference period, that is, using a 12-month index reference period where the average CPI for the 12 months of 2024 is equated to 100.

” This is not the same with the single-month index reference period, in which December 2024 was set to 100,” he said.