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The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) today reported a moderation in headline inflation to 24.5 percent in January 2025. Nigeria’s headline inflation rate was 34.8 percent in December 2024.

The slower inflation data follows the rebasing of the country’s consumer price index (CPI) this past January.

The decline in inflation was observed across NBS’ key sub-indices. Core inflation eased to 22.6 percent in January 2025, from 29.3 percent in December 2024. Food inflation also moderated to 26.1 percent last month compared to 39.8 percent a month earlier.

Last month, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, in collaboration with the NBS, held a public sensitisation event in Lagos on the imminent rebasing of Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) and the CPI, which measures the country’s inflation.

The proposed new base year for the computation of new CPI is 2024, with the aim of capturing the structural changes in the economy driven by the removal of subsidies on petrol and the foreign exchange rate.

NBS said the constituents of the inflation basket were expected to expand from 740 to 960. Also, the updated 2018 classification system would replace the 1999 version. This change would increase the number of the CPI’s divisions from 12 to 13. NBS also said inflation data collection processes would be digitised to improve efficiency and accuracy.

In addition to the regular inflation indexes, the NBS said it will introduce special indexes at both the state and national levels. These include the services, energy, farm produce, and goods indexes.

CardinalStone Research noted that the re-weighting of the CPI basket may result in a reduction in the impact of food and non-alcoholic beverage price changes on the overall headline inflation reading. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels are likely to have a lesser impact on future core inflation readings due to the re-weightings. And transport and restaurants & accommodation services are likely to have a more pronounced impact on future inflation readings due to the re-weightings.

The 2025 appropriation bill presented by President Bola Tinubu to the National Assembly last December set the benchmark rate for inflation in 2025 at 15 percent.