The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has reported a headline inflation rate of 15.15 percent for December 2025, marking a 0.7-point increase from the previous month following a recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) rebasing exercise.
According to the NBS Statistician-General, Adeyemi Adeniran, the primary drivers of this surge were Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Restaurants and Accommodation Services, and Transport costs.
Despite the year-on-year increase, month-on-month headline inflation dropped to 0.54 percent, with food prices for items like tomatoes, garri, and vegetables seeing a decline.
State-level data revealed that Abia, Ogun, and Katsina recorded the highest inflation rates, while Sokoto and Plateau saw the lowest.
Looking ahead, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has projected that Nigeria’s inflation will slow to single digits by 2029, a milestone that would signify a consolidation of macroeconomic gains.
During the launch of the group’s ‘2026 Macroeconomic Outlook,’ NESG Chief Economist Olusegun Omisakin anticipated that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would expand by 5.5 percent in 2026, with inflation stabilizing at 16 percent by the end of the current year.
The NBS also noted that consumption patterns vary across states and cautioned against misleading interstate comparisons.
In a separate development, the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has firmly dispelled rumors regarding the imposition of new Value-Added Tax (VAT) charges on banking services.
The Special Adviser on Media to the NRS Executive Chairman, Dare Adekanmbi, clarified that VAT has always applied to fees and commissions such as transfer charges and card maintenance fees under Nigeria’s existing tax laws and was not newly introduced by the Nigeria Tax Act.
He emphasized that VAT is charged only on the service fee, not on the transfer amount itself, and reiterated that essential items like basic food, medical services, and educational tuition remain exempt from VAT to protect consumers.