The National Bureau of Statistics has announced a significantly lower inflation rate for Nigeria after adopting a revised calculation under a rebased methodology.
Under this revised calculation, Nigeria’s headline inflation for January 2025 is 24.48% year-on-year, the bureau announced on Tuesday.
Breakdown of January 2025 Inflation:
- Food Inflation: 26.08%
- Core Inflation: 22.59%
- Urban Inflation: 26.09%
- Rural Inflation: 22.15%
For comparison, the headline inflation in December 2024 using the old methodology was 34.80% (November 2024: 34.60%)
- Food Inflation: 39.84%
- Core Inflation: 29.28%
- Urban Inflation: 37.29%
- Rural Inflation: 32.47%
The NBS says the rebasing updates its data by using 2024 as the price base year instead of 2009. The new calculation also expands the basket to 934 products, up from 740.
However, the figures are likely to raise doubts among Nigerians grappling with a severe cost of living crisis after President Bola Tinubu’s removal of petrol and electricity subsidies and the devaluation of the naira.
The methodological change follows a similar revision by the NBS last year, when the unemployment rate was dramatically reduced from 33.3% in the last quarter of 2020 to 4.1% in the first quarter of 2023.
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