The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday said Nigeria’s headline inflation has changed to 24.48 per cent year on year in January 2025 from the 34.80 per cent recorded in December 2024.

The Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, who made the announcement during a briefing in Abuja, said that urban inflation stood at 26.09 per cent while rural inflation came to 22.15 per cent.

The changes come after the rebasing of the country’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) in keeping with international standards.

Rebasing of the CPI involves updating the reference year used to gauge price levels in the country and modifying the basket of goods and services used in inflation measurement. This adjustment ensures that inflation figures better reflect current economic conditions and consumer spending habits.

What NBS has done, therefore, is that it updated the reference year used to gauge price levels from 2009 to 2024.

Using the new template, Adeniran said the general prices of goods and services in the country declined, compared to the 34.80 per cent in December, which used the old template.

According to the CPI figures for the period under review, the rebased food inflation stood at 26.08 per cent year-on-year in January, representing a decline in the food index when compared with 39.84 per cent year-on-year recorded in the preceding month.

Similarly, the rebased core index which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce and energy stood at 22.59 per cent year on year in January.

But while the rebased inflation by the NBS may be good for investor confidence, the economic realities that Nigerians grapple with, including high food prices, remain, according to an economist, Paul Alaje.

Speaking on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” programme on Tuesday, Alaje said while food inflation alone was about 51.8 per cent before the announcement, it accounts for only 40 per cent of total inflation in the new figure.

“That does not mean that if you go to the market tomorrow that the price of food has improved, that will be a lie, our reality remains the same,” Alaje said.

“Also, people who want to invest in our country, perhaps when they see a reduced inflation rate, will have confidence, and we need this,” he said.

The economist said it would be wrong for people to say inflation dropped from 34 per cent to 24 per cent.

“That will be a wrong narrative. If it drops, we should see the reflection in prices, but that is not what we have seen,” Alaje said, adding that the right word to use is ‘change’ and not ‘drop’.

“What the Bureau of Statistics has done today is not to say that inflation dropped. The Bureau is saying: ‘We are no longer going to reference 2009 as the base year; we will now start referencing 2024’,” he said.

Alaje said in 2009, Nigeria used 20 hours per week as an employment measure, but now the country uses one hour per week as a gauge for employment.

He cited two key decisions of the government – subsidy removal and floating of the forex rates –noting that “the wisest thing to do is to make the necessary adjustment”.