Abuja — 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.
The reports indicated that inflation rate dropped for the eighth consecutive time to around 14.00 per cent in November, as against 16.50 per cent recorded in October. It had stood at 18.02 per cent in September.
The disinflation trend, which started in April, had seen inflation rate declining from 24.23 per cent in March to 23.71 per cent in April and thereafter steadily to 16.50 per cent in October.
Analysts at Coronation Group projected headline inflation to drop to 14.30 per cent 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.
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.
