Nigeria’s headline inflation declined further to 23.18 per cent year on year, the statistics office said on Monday. The new headline consumer inflation aligned with analysts’ estimates.
Analysts say the slowdown was driven by reduction in food prices.
According to Bismarck Rewane, Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company, “the food basket declined to 23.51 per cent from 26.1 per cent, driven by seasonality.
The falling prices of items such as yam tubers, potatoes, maize flour, cassava, and beans led to this decline. Meanwhile, the non-food basket increased to 22.06 per cent from 21.9 per cent, due to entrenched challenges, electricity costs, medicals, rents”.
He however warned that it is not victory dance time.
“It is noteworthy that core inflation, which is inflation excluding seasonalities and energy—rose by 0.5 per cent to 23.1 per cent from 22.6 per cent.” This implies that the fundamental problem with inflation in Nigeria remains structural. Hence, the solution is not merely about interest rate movements or policy changes; it is primarily about increasing output. Until output begins to increase, core inflation will remain persistent”, said Rewane.
Based on the rebased consumer price index (CPI) data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s headline inflation slowed by 130bps to 23.18 per cent in February from 24.48 per cent at the beginning of the year.
Adamawa at 12.18 per cent, followed by Ondo at 13.66 percent, and Oyo at 15.53 per cent recorded the slowest rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis.’’
The report, however, said on a month-on-month basis, food inflation was highest in Sokoto at 18.83 percent, followed by Nasarawa at 15.32 percent, and Kogi at 11.65 percent. Ondo at -9.81 percent, followed by Kaduna at -8.91 percent, and Oyo at -6.42 per cent, recorded the slowest rise in inflation on a month-on-month basis.”
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, said the rebasing was designed to ensure that Nigeria’s economic indicators accurately reflected the current structure of the economy. This includes incorporating new and emerging sectors, updating consumption baskets, and refining data collection methods.
Adeniran said part of the process of rebasing the CPI included bringing the base year closer to the current period, from 2009 to 2024.