Yam, potato, flour drive down Nigeria’s food inflation for second month 

Nigeria’s annual food inflation dropped to 23.51% in February from 26.08% in the previous month, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report released on Monday.

This is the second drop in inflation figures since the National Bureau of Statistics rebased the country’s CPI data. 

“The significant decline in the food inflation figure is technically due to the change in the base year. However, on a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in February 2025 was 1.67 percent,” the report said.

It added that compared to January, there was an observed decline in the average prices of food items like yam tuber, potatoes, soya beans, flour of maize/cornmeal, cassava, and bambara beans (dried), among others.

The average annual rate of food inflation for the 12 months to February 2025 over the  same period a year earlier was 34.74%, which was 4.67% points higher compared with the average annual rate of change recorded in February 2024 (30.07%).

The country’s headline inflation rate also dropped from to 23.18% from 24.48%.

Inflation climbed to its highest in 28 years in 2024, after President Bola Tinubu scrapped costly petrol subsidies and devalue the naira.

At its first rate-setting meeting of the year last month, the central bank left its key interest rate at 27.5% after six hikes last year, citing falling inflation.