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Data released today by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows Nigeria’s inflation continued its upward movement in December 2024. The country’s annualised headline inflation rate rose to 34.80% in the final month of the year.

On a month-on-month basis, the consumer price index (CPI), which measures changes in the general price level, increased by 2.44% in December 2024. Headline inflation was 34.60% in November 2024.  

Food inflation rate rose to 39.84% year-on-year in December 2024.

According to the computation by Financial Nigeria, Nigeria’s headline inflation rate averaged 33.18% in 2024. Except in July and August, inflation persistently increased during the year.

With inflation at 34.80% last December, the projection of the Central Bank of Nigeria for inflation to moderate to 21.40% at the end of 2024 was overshot by 13.4 percentage points. This indicates the struggle of policymakers to slow down the rate of inflation in the country.

The NBS plans to rebase the inflation this January. During a public sensitisation event it co-hosted with Nigerian Economic Summit Group on the 9th of January, NBS said the proposed new base year for its computation of inflation rate will change to 2024. This is aimed at capturing the structural changes in the economy, which has been driven by the removal of subsidies on petrol and the foreign exchange rate.

The state-owned statistics agency said the constituents of the inflation basket are expected to expand from 740 to 960. Also, the updated 2018 classification system used by the NBS will replace the current 1999 version. This change will increase the number of the CPI’s divisions from 12 to 13. NBS also said inflation data collection processes will be digitised to improve efficiency and accuracy.

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

The Nigerian government has set a benchmark of 15% for inflation in the 2025 appropriation bill, which is being considered for passing by the National Assembly.