Inflation Trends in June 2025: A Mixed Picture of Decline and Rising Monthly Pressures
The headline inflation rate for June 2025 showed a slight moderation, dropping to 22.22 percent from the 22.97 percent recorded in May 2025. This decline is part of a broader trend that reflects a year-on-year decrease of 11.97 percentage points compared to June 2024, which had an inflation rate of 34.19 percent. The National Bureau of Statistics reported these figures, highlighting the impact of the rebased index with 2024 as the new base year.
Despite the overall decline, the month-on-month inflation rate increased slightly to 1.68 percent in June, up from 1.53 percent in May. This suggests that while the pace of price increases has slowed on an annual basis, prices are still rising from one month to the next. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose from 121.4 in May to 123.4 in June, indicating ongoing price pressures, particularly in food, transport, and housing sectors.
Food Inflation: A Sharp Drop but Persistent Challenges
The food inflation rate for June 2025 stood at 21.97 percent year-on-year, a significant drop from the 40.87 percent recorded in June 2024. This reduction is largely attributed to the base year effect. However, on a month-on-month basis, food inflation increased to 3.25 percent in June, up from 2.19 percent in May. This rise was driven by higher prices for staples such as tomatoes, pepper, dried green peas, crayfish, shrimps, meat, plantain flour, and ground pepper.
The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve-month period ending June 2025 was 28.28 percent, down by 7.02 percentage points from the 35.3 percent recorded over a similar period last year. While this is a positive development, it still indicates that food costs remain a major concern for many households.
Core Inflation: Mixed Signals
Core inflation, which excludes volatile items like agricultural produce and energy, declined year-on-year to 22.76 percent in June 2025 from 27.4 percent in June 2024. However, on a month-on-month basis, core inflation increased to 2.46 percent, up from 1.10 percent in May. This reflects renewed pressures in non-food components, such as services and utilities.
The twelve-month average for core inflation was 24.14 percent in June 2025, slightly higher than the 24.01 percent recorded in the same period in 2024. This suggests that while some areas of the economy are stabilizing, others continue to experience upward pressure.
Urban vs. Rural Inflation: Diverging Trends
Inflation trends varied between urban and rural areas. Urban inflation dropped to 22.72 percent year-on-year in June from 36.55 percent in June 2024, but it rose to 2.11 percent month-on-month, up from 1.40 percent in May. The twelve-month average for urban inflation also declined to 28.16 percent.
Rural inflation followed a similar pattern, easing to 20.85 percent year-on-year from 32.09 percent, but slowing month-on-month to 0.63 percent in June, down from 1.83 percent in May. The average annual rural inflation rate stood at 24.65 percent.
State-Level Variations
At the state level, Borno recorded the highest year-on-year all-items inflation rate at 31.63 percent, followed by Abuja at 26.79 percent and Benue at 25.91 percent. The slowest increases were observed in Zamfara at 9.90 percent, Yobe at 13.51 percent, and Sokoto at 15.78 percent.
On a month-on-month basis, Ekiti, Delta, and Lagos experienced the sharpest increases at 5.39 percent, 5.15 percent, and 5.13 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, Zamfara, Niger, and Plateau saw declines of 6.89 percent, 5.35 percent, and 4.01 percent, respectively.
Regional Food Inflation: A Closer Look
Food inflation was most severe in Borno at 47.40 percent year-on-year, followed by Ebonyi at 30.62 percent and Bayelsa at 28.64 percent. Katsina, Adamawa, and Sokoto recorded the slowest food inflation at 6.21 percent, 10.90 percent, and 15.25 percent, respectively.
On a month-on-month basis, Enugu, Kwara, and Rivers saw the fastest increases in food inflation at 11.90 percent, 9.97 percent, and 9.88 percent, respectively. Borno, Sokoto, and Bayelsa recorded declines of 7.63 percent, 6.43 percent, and 6.34 percent, respectively.
Key Drivers of Inflation
The divisions contributing most significantly to the headline index included food and non-alcoholic beverages, restaurants and accommodation services, transport, housing, electricity, gas, and other fuels, education, health, and clothing and footwear. These categories highlight the broad-based nature of inflation, affecting multiple aspects of daily life.
While the easing of inflation on a yearly basis may reflect improved stability in macroeconomic indicators, the rising monthly rates suggest that Nigerian households continue to face considerable cost-of-living pressures.
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