…As consumer inflation eases 14.45% y/y in November
By Charles Ebi
Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise ,CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf called for a combination of monetary, fiscal, and structural policies to consolidate the gains of disinflation and ensure real welfare benefits for citizens.
He said: “The way to convert the disinflation trend into a general gain is to focus on the prices of basic items and basic needs. If you look at the composition of the inflation drivers, even within the context of disinflation, the major drivers are things like food, energy, transport, education, and health. Those are the major drivers of inflation even within the context of disinflation.
“So, what one would like to see for the effect to be a lot more pronounced is for the prices of these basic things to come down even further, talking about prices of food items, energy prices, cost of transportation, cost of education, cost of pharmaceutical products, and cost of health. These are the things ordinary people spend most of their income on. We need to see more deliberate policy intervention, particularly within the fiscal policy, to drive down some of those costs, so that the impact will be greater.
According to him, government could engage in indirect subsidization of some of the basic utilities by deploying more government-owned transport vehicles and investments in mass transits and agricultural inputs.
“This is not only a federal government issue, the state governments have very big roles to play, as well as the local governments. They should be able to provide transportation at a highly discounted cost to the citizens, they should subsidize agriculture more so that the cost of food can come down significantly and by same effect, food prices. They need to continue to subsidize education and health. That is the way we can have welfare gains for the citizens in addition to the macroeconomic gains. That’s the kind of policy mix that we should begin to deliver in order to ensure the benefits of this disinflation go down to the people”, Yusuf said.
Recall that Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased for the eighth consecutive month in November as it printed 14.45% relative to the October 2025 headline inflation rate of 16.05%.
According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics ,NBS, on Monday, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in November 2025 was 1.22%, which was 0.29% higher than the 0.93% recorded in October 2025.
Average prices of goods and services have continued to improve on the back of stable foreign exchange (forex), food supply and logistics.
Ahead of the release of the Consumer Price Index ,CPI, Report today by the National Bureau of Statistics ,NBS, independent consumer surveys and econometric models surveyed yesterday showed continued disinflationary trend, with the headline inflation dropping by more than 100 basis points.
Consumer inflation peaked at 34% last December before dropping after the stats office revised its base year from 2009 to 2024 and adjusted the weight of items in its price basket.
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in November 2025 was 1.13%, up by 1.5% from the -0.37% achieved in the preceding month. The increase can be attributed to the rate of increase in the average prices of tomatoes (dried), cassava tuber, periwinkle (shelled), grounded pepper, eggs, crayfish, melon (egusi) unshelled, oxtail, and onions (fresh), among others.
The average annual rate of food inflation for the 12 months ending November 2025 over the previous 12 months’ average was 19.68%, which was 18.99 per cent points lower than the average annual rate of change recorded in November 2024 at 38.67%.
The reports indicated that inflation rate dropped for the eighth consecutive time to around 14.00% in November, as against 16.50% recorded in October. It had stood at 18.02% in September.
The disinflation trend, which started in April, had seen inflation rate declining from 24.23% in March to 23.71% in April and thereafter steadily to 16.50% in October.
Analysts at Coronation Group projected headline inflation to drop to 14.30% in November 2025.
“Nigeria’s headline inflation is expected to ease in November, supported by forex stability that has reduced pass-through pressures on imported goods. The reopening of the borders, alongside lower input costs and improved domestic supply conditions, is projected ease food and non-food cost pressures”, SCM Capital stated.
For the urban inflation rate, it stood at 13.61% versus 23.49% in the previous month and compared with the 37.10% recorded in November 2024.
On a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation rate was 0.95% in the review month, down by 0.18% from the 1.14% in October 2025. The corresponding 12-month average for the urban inflation rate was 20.80%in November 2025, which was 14.27% lower than the 35.07% reported in November 2024.
The rural inflation rate in November 2025 was 15.15% on a year-on-year basis, standing 17.12% lower than the 32.27% recorded in November 2024. On a month-on-month basis, the rural inflation rate in November 2025 was 1.88% ,up by 1.43% when compared with the 0.45% achieved in October 2025. The corresponding 12-month average for the rural inflation rate in November 2025 was 19.46%. This was 11.24% lower than the 30.71% recorded in November 2024.
