Nigeria Inflation Drops to 18.02% – First Below 20% in 3 Years
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Nigeria’s Inflation Rate Drops to 18.02% in September 2025
Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped to 18.02 per cent in September 2025, marking the sixth consecutive month of decline and the first time in three years that the inflation figure has fallen below the 20 per cent mark.
The development, revealed in the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, signals a sustained slowdown in price growth across major economic sectors.
According to the NBS,the September inflation rate represented a 2.1 per cent decrease compared to 20.12 per cent in August 2025, and a 14.68 per cent year-on-year drop from the 32.70 per cent recorded in September 2024.
this sustained moderation in inflation, analysts say, is largely due to the rebasing of the CPI and recent monetary policy adjustments by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which had earlier cut the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) for the first time in years.
“On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in September 2025 was 0.72 per cent, 0.02 per cent lower than the rate recorded in August (0.74 per cent). This means that in September, the rate of increase in the average price level was slower than in August,” the NBS stated.
Detailed Inflation Breakdown
The report also showed that food inflation dropped significantly to 16.87 per cent on a year-on-year basis – 20.9 percentage points lower than the 37.77 per cent recorded in September 2024.
NBS attributed the decline partly to the change in the base year and a reduction in food prices, especially for key commodities such as maize, garri, beans, millet, potatoes, onions, eggs, tomatoes, and pepper.
On a month-on-month basis, food inflation was recorded at -1.57 per cent, down by 3.22 per cent compared to August’s 1.65 per cent – a sign that average food prices fell rather than increased during the month.
Core inflation – which excludes volatile items such as food
