By Omoniyi David
Nigeria’s food inflation slowed to 22.74% year-on-year in July 2025, down sharply by 16.79 percentage points from 39.53% in July 2024 and well below the 45.4% recorded in June 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The bureau said the decline was driven by a change in the base year and lower prices of key staples such as vegetable oil, beans, local rice, maize, flour, guinea corn, wheat flour, and millet.
On a month-on-month basis, food inflation eased slightly to 3.12% in July from 3.25% in June.
State breakdown: Year-on-year, the highest food inflation rates were in Borno (55.56%), Osun (29.10%), and Ebonyi (29.06%), while Katsina (6.61%), Adamawa (9.90%), and Zamfara (14.72%) recorded the slowest increases.
Month-on-month, the steepest rises came from Borno (10.89%), Kano (10.86%), and Sokoto (7.40%), while Bauchi (-2.18%), Abia (-1.00%), and Zamfara (6.00%) saw declines.
Headline inflation fell to 21.88% in July from 22.22% in June, down 11.52 percentage points from 33.40% in July 2024.
The largest contributors were food and non-alcoholic beverages (8.75%), restaurants and accommodation services (2.83%), and transport (2.33%).
Recreation (0.07%), alcoholic drinks and tobacco (0.08%), and insurance and financial services (0.10%) contributed the least.
Core inflation; excluding volatile farm produce and energy, stood at 21.33% year-on-year and 0.97% month-on-month, down from 2.46% in June.
Sub-index data showed increases in farm produce (3.96%), energy (2.71%), and goods (2.70%), while services slowed to 0.47%.
Urban inflation was 22.01% year-on-year and 1.18% month-on-month, down from 2.1% in June.
Rural inflation stood at 21.08% year-on-year and rose to 2.30% month-on-month, up from 0.63% in June.
