Nigeria’s inflation rate has dropped to 22.97 per cent in May 2025 from the 23.71 per cent recorded in April 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), marking the second consecutive month of cooling.
The statistics office said the May 2025 headline inflation rate decreased 0.74 per cent compared to the April headline inflation rate.
On a year-on-year basis, the NBS said the headline inflation rate was 10.98 per cent lower than the rate 33.95 per cent recorded in May 2024.
The NBS said on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in May 2025 stood at 1.53 per cent, which is 0.33 per cent lower than the 1.86 per cent achieved 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,” it said.
According to the report, the food inflation rate in May 2025 was 21.14 per cent on a year-on-year basis. This, it said, was 19.52 per cent points lower compared to the 40.66 per cent recorded in May 2024.
Recall that the NBS rebased Nigeria’s annual inflation rate in January, a move that saw it drop to 24.48 per cent from 34.80 per cent in December 2024. The move saw the benchmark year put at 2024 from 2009.
The cooling of the headline inflation may strengthen support for advocates calling for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to cut the benchmark interest rate which was held at 27.50 per cent at the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in May.
At the meeting, Mr Yemi Cardoso, the Governor of the apex bank and chair of the MPC, at the time said the committee would continue to observe trends around inflation to take decisive steps in coming months.