Nigeria’s annual inflation rate eased to 20.12 per cent in August from 21.88 per cent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.
The statistics office said the August 2025 headline inflation rate decreased by 1.76 per cent compared to the July 2025 headline inflation rate.
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Inflation indicators compare prices of goods and services over 12 months. A decline does not necessarily imply a reduction in prices; instead, it shows the rate of price increase had fallen compared to previous months.
On a year-on-year basis, the bureau said the headline inflation rate was 12.03 per cent lower than the rate recorded in August 2024 (32.15 per cent).
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This, it said, shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) decreased in August 2025 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., August 2024), though with a different base year, November 2009 = 100.
The NBS said on a month-on-month basis that the headline inflation rate in August 2025 was 0.74 per cent, 1.25 per cent lower than the rate recorded in July 2025 (1.99 per cent).
“This means that in August 2025, the rate of increase in the average price level was lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in July 2025,” it said.
The report said the food inflation rate in August 2025 was 21.87 per cent yearly. This was 15.65 percentage points lower compared to the rate recorded in August 2024 (37.52 per cent).
Breakdown
In its inflation report Monday, the NBS said the contributions of items on the divisional year-on-year level to the increase in the headline index are food & non-alcoholic beverages (8.05 per cent), restaurants and accommodation services (2.60 per cent), transport (2.15 per cent), housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuel (1.69 per cent), education services (1.25 per cent), health (1.22 per cent), clothing & footwear (1.01 per cent).
Others are information and communication (0.66 per cent), personal care, social protection, and miscellaneous goods and services (0.66 per cent), furnishing, household equipment, and routine household maintenance (0.60 per cent), insurance and financial services (0.09 per cent), alcoholic beverage, tobacco and narcotics (0.07 per cent) and recreation, sport and culture (0.06 per cent).
The NBS explained that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 126.8 in August 2025, reflecting a 0.9-point increase from the preceding month (125.9).
It noted that the percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending August 2025 over the average for the previous twelve-month period was 24.66%, showing a 6.6 per cent decrease compared to 31.26 per cent recorded in August 2024.
Food inflation
The NBS said the significant decline in the annual food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year.
On a month-on-month basis, it said the food inflation rate in August 2025 was 1.65 per cent, down by 1.47 per cent compared to July 2025 (3.12 per cent).
It added that the decrease can be attributed to the rate of decline in the average prices of rice (imported), rice (local), guinea corn flour, maize flour sold loose, guinea corn (sorghum), millet, semolina, soya milk, etc.
“The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending August 2025 over the previous twelve-month average was 25.75 per cent, which was 11.24 percentage points lower compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in August 2024 (36.99 per cent),” the NBS said.
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The bureau said in August 2025, food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Borno (36.67 per cent), Kano (30.44 per cent), Akwa Ibom (29.85 per cent), while Zamfara (3.30 per cent), Yobe (3.60 per cent), and Sokoto (6.34 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in food inflation on year-on-year basis.
“On a month-on-month basis, however, August 2025 food inflation was highest in Kaduna (9.37 per cent), Katsina (9.05 per cent), Akwa Ibom (7.87 per cent), and while Bayelsa (-9.52 per cent), Sokoto (-8.92 per cent), and Borno (-8.74 per cent) recorded decline in food inflation on month-on-month basis,” it said.
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