Nigeria’s July 2025 Inflation Drop to 21.88% Sparks Calls for Urgent Reforms – Economist Muda Yusuf
Story: Written By Okafor Joseph August 18,2025
Renowned economist and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), Muda Yusuf, has urged the Nigerian government to urgently address structural barriers to business growth following the release of July 2025 inflation figures.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Friday, August 15, that Nigeria’s headline inflation slowed for the fourth consecutive month, easing from 22.22% in June to 21.88% in July. Food inflation also moderated slightly on a month-on-month basis, dropping from 3.25% in June to 3.12% in July. Core inflation recorded marginal year-on-year declines at -0.03% and a sharper slowdown month-on-month from 3.46% to 0.97%.
Yusuf described the July report as a basis for “cautious optimism,” noting that the easing inflation trend reflects a gradually stabilising macroeconomic environment, supported by exchange rate stability, improved investor confidence, and import duty waivers on key staples such as rice, maize, and sorghum.
“The July 2025 inflation report provides a basis for cautious optimism. While progress has been made in moderating headline and core inflation, the persistence of food and month-on-month price increases highlights unresolved structural weaknesses,” he said.
He highlighted that despite positive trends, risks remain, with month-on-month headline inflation rising from 1.68% in June to 1.99% in July, while year-on-year food inflation climbed from 21.97% to 22.74%, showing Nigeria’s continued vulnerability to supply-side shocks.
Yusuf called on fiscal and monetary authorities to prioritise key policy areas to sustain progress, including:
- Maintaining stability in the foreign exchange market to anchor inflation expectations.
- Tackling high logistics and import costs, insecurity, climate risks, and port inefficiencies.
- Enforcing fiscal discipline to ensure prudent government spending and avoid excessive liquidity injections.
- Exploring more creative monetary policy tools beyond the cash reserve ratio (CRR) and monetary policy rate (MPR), given that lending rates have climbed above 30% for most businesses.
He stressed that a coordinated mix of monetary, fiscal, and structural reforms is critical to consolidating recent gains and steering the Nigerian economy toward long-term stability.
