{"id":356244,"date":"2025-08-19T07:35:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/356244\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T07:35:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T07:35:10","slug":"nigerians-business-owners-in-squeeze-amid-fourth-inflation-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/356244\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigerians, business owners in squeeze amid fourth inflation decline"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Despite the fourth consecutive decline in the country\u2019s inflation rate, Nigerians and businesses are yet to experience the much expected relief.<\/p>\n<p>DAILY POST reports that Nigeria\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/dailypost.ng\/2025\/08\/15\/food-price-cut-nigerias-inflation-drops-to-21-88-in-july-for-fourth-consecutive-time\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">inflation dropped to 21.88 percent<\/a> in July from 22.22 percent in June. A decline has been the case since April 2025, when it stood at 23.7 percent on a month-on-month basis.<\/p>\n<p>The drops have excited President Bola Ahmed Tinubu\u2019s team as they reflect on their principal\u2019s leadership gains in the last two years.<\/p>\n<p>This is also the case with the country\u2019s Gross Domestic Product, which grew to N372.8 trillion in 2024 after the rebase in July 2025.<\/p>\n<p>DAILY POST reports that, like Nigeria\u2019s GDP, the <a href=\"https:\/\/dailypost.ng\/2025\/07\/21\/nigerias-rebased-gdp-rose-to-n372-8trn-in-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">inflation rate was also rebased<\/a> in January this year, resulting in a sharp decline of the year-on-year headline inflation rate to 24.48 percent from 34.80 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, the reason Nigeria\u2019s former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the <a href=\"https:\/\/dailypost.ng\/2025\/08\/15\/two-next-things-tinubu-must-do-for-the-nigerian-economy-okonjo-iweala\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">country\u2019s economy is stabilising<\/a>, during her recent visit to President Tinubu.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, while the rebase led to a significant drop in the standing of the country\u2019s inflation, Nigerians and businesses have continued to experience worsening economic realities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Beautiful Statistics but Hungry Nigerians<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Food prices, interest rates (27.50 percent in July), energy prices, and transportation costs have remained elevated.<\/p>\n<p>A local 50-kilogramme bag of local rice costs between N69,000 to N75,000 in parts of Abuja and Lagos.<\/p>\n<p>Also fuel price is around N865 to N925 per litre in Lagos and Abuja. Cooking gas is around N1,000 to N1,200 per kilogramme. Band A electricity tariff stood at N209.50 to N231.79 per kilowatt-hour. Transportation fare whether by road or air has skyrocketed. These are some of the realistic indicators, which vary from the beautiful \u2018too-good statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><strong>Economic experts divided over Nigeria\u2019s inflation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Reacting in separate interviews with DAILY POST on Monday, Mazi Okechukwu Unegbu, a former president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), the Chief Executive Officer of SD &amp; D Capital Management, Gbolade Idakolo and a renowned economist, Prof. Segun Ajibola expressed mixed reactions about the country\u2019s July inflation rate.<\/p>\n<p>On his part, Unegbu insisted that there is a wide difference between the reality faced by Nigerians and businesses and the NBS\u2019s consumer price index and inflation figure.<\/p>\n<p>He dismissed the inflation figures as presented by the country\u2019s statistical agency, NBS.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a wide difference between the inflation figure by NBS and the reality on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe government believes in statistics, ignoring realities. The NBS\u2019s report is so disturbing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a beautiful report, but at the end of the day, there is nothing to write home about,\u201d he told DAILY POST.<\/p>\n<p>He urged that \u201cthe government has to address the hunger in the land, not celebrate beautiful statistics. It needs to reconsider some of its economic policies, the interest rate, and agricultural policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is unfortunate that political jobbers praise the president that he is doing very, very well; however, some of us who study economics see it the other way,\u201d he told DAILY POST.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the Chief Executive Officer of SD &amp; D Capital Management, Gbolade Idakolo, reiterated that Nigeria\u2019s food inflation has continued to rise due to insecurity in the country\u2019s agrarian areas and exchange rate challenges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe core inflation declined for the fourth consecutive period due to the Central Bank of Nigeria\u2019s position on MPR and other interventions in the economy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, food inflation continues to rise due to insecurity in agrarian areas and exchange rate challenges for imported agricultural inputs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImported food prices are also maintaining a high rate, while logistics costs, especially energy costs and transportation of agricultural products, constitute a major factor affecting food inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe federal government needs to do more in pushing its agricultural policies to reduce the causative factors affecting food inflation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, DAILY POST reported that the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise noted that <a href=\"https:\/\/dailypost.ng\/2025\/08\/17\/food-prices-remain-high-despite-fourth-inflation-decline-cppe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">food price hikes persist<\/a> despite the decline in the country\u2019s inflation rate for the fourth consecutive time.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a renowned economist and former president and chairman of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Prof. Segun Ajibola, gave reasons for the decline in the country\u2019s inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe headline inflation figure is derived by computing changes in the prices of a basket of consumable items (consumer price index). The figure depends on the items contained in the basket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt times, the behavioural pattern of consumable items varies significantly. And since the basket is not all-inclusive, a drop in prices of the items in the basket so weighed may signal lower inflation, while the prices of the items not in the basket may remain high.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAgain, NBS tries to conduct a market survey to have first hand information about the market prices. It then depends on the prices in the market so surveyed, which may vary from those of other locations not visited.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do know that prices of food items vary from place to place in Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe inflation figure rolled out may therefore not be representative of the real situation across board.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is an estimate that may vary from reality. NBS tries to manage such variances by being consistent with the contents of the basket so measured.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut then, the error of commission and omission remains,\u201d he told DAILY POST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the fourth consecutive decline in the country\u2019s inflation rate, Nigerians and businesses are yet to experience the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-356244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115054282443941427","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}