Inflation Rate drops to 22.97% — NBS Report

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced a slight drop in Nigeria’s headline inflation rate, which stood at 22.97 percent in May 2025, compared to 23.71 percent recorded in April.

This was disclosed in the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released by the agency on Monday.

According to the NBS, the year-on-year inflation figure represents a 10.98 percent decrease from the 33.95 percent recorded in May 2024. On a month-on-month comparison, the inflation rate for May was 1.53 percent, showing a 0.33 percent drop from the 1.86 percent recorded in April 2025.

“This means that in May 2025, the rate of increase in the average price level is lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in April 2025,” the report read.

The bureau explained that the headline inflation was mainly driven by rising costs in food, accommodation, and transport services.

In the same report, food inflation on a year-on-year basis stood at 21.14 percent in May 2025. However, on a month-on-month scale, food inflation increased slightly to 2.19 percent from 2.06 percent in April, attributed to price hikes in commodities such as yam, ogbono, cassava tuber, maize flour, fresh pepper, and sweet potatoes.

The NBS also stated that the average annual food inflation rate for the twelve months ending May 2025 was 29.80 percent — 4.26 percent lower than the 34.06 percent recorded during the same period in 2024.

On state-by-state analysis, Borno recorded the highest year-on-year food inflation at 64.36 percent, followed by Bayelsa at 39.85 percent and Taraba at 38.58 percent. Meanwhile, Katsina (6.90 percent), Rivers (9.18 percent), and Kwara (11.31 percent) reported the slowest rises in food inflation.

For the month-on-month changes, Bayelsa (12.68 percent), Cross River (11.15 percent), and Anambra (9.10 percent) recorded the highest increases, while Katsina (-5.42 percent), Jigawa (-4.02 percent), and Kaduna (-3.27 percent) experienced the slowest.