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By Chinwendu Obienyi
Nigeria’s food inflation may appear to be easing on paper, but the latest data suggest the reprieve is fragile and largely statistical.
According to a new report by SBM Intelligence, the average cost of preparing a pot of Jollof rice, a proxy for household food affordability, dipped marginally in the third quarter of 2025, masking deep-seated structural challenges that continue to drive high food prices nationwide.
The national average jollof index, which measures the monthly cost of core ingredients needed to cook jollof rice for a family of five, fell by 3.17 per cent between June and September, from N27,528 to N26,656. The report attributes this modest decline to seasonal harvest supplies, temporary import waivers, and a more stable naira, rather than any meaningful improvement in the country’s food production or distribution systems.
SBM’s analysis shows that price movement during the quarter was far from linear. The Index rose slightly in July to N27,836, stabilised in August at N27,516, and only dropped sharply in September as early harvests reached key markets. “The relief came late, limited, and highly localised,” the report noted.
Official data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) appear to support this trend, showing food inflation easing from 22.7 per cent in July to about 18 per cent in September. However, the geopolitical, research and consulting firm warned that the apparent progress may be misleading. The recent rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) from a 2009 to a 2024 base year, it said, has altered the inflation baseline, effectively making year-on-year changes appear smaller than the real pressure faced by households.
“A significant technical event influencing the perception of food prices was the
implementation of the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket, shifting the reference year from 2009 to 2024. As a statistical consequence, the reported year-on-year (YoY) food inflation rate for July 2025 was 22.74 per cent, a substantial 16.79 percentage point decline compared to the pre-rebased rate in July 2024 (39.53 per cent).
While statistically accurate under the new measure, this figure compares against an already hyper-inflated 2024 price baseline, not genuine consumer-level price relief.
The continued elevation of the absolute Jollof Index baseline, combined with persistently high month-on-month inflation (3.12 per cent in July), confirms that fundamental inflationary pressures remain stubbornly sustained. Relying heavily on the technically lowered YoY figure risks creating a policy credibility gap, which may divert critical attention and resources away from tackling the deep structural challenges that maintain the critically high Jollof Index floor price”, it said.
At the heart of Nigeria’s food crisis lies what SBM describes as a “Price Risk Premium”, a permanent cost layer embedded in the food supply chain due to widespread insecurity, fractured logistics, and informal taxation.
The report also revealed that persistent conflict across the North-West, North-East, and North-Central regions continues to restrict farmland access, disrupt transport routes, and force traders to pay for security escorts and checkpoint levies.
Field data suggest that these informal costs add 20 per cent to 30 per cent to the price of moving food from farms to cities, creating a high and sticky price floor that resists conventional monetary or fiscal policy interventions.
“The true driver of food inflation is not the exchange rate; it is the insecurity and inefficiency in the supply chain,” the report stated.
Providing recommendations, SBM argued that the federal government must now treat security in food-producing and transit regions as core economic infrastructure, not a discretionary expense.
According to the report, without restoring safety, dismantling illegal checkpoint systems, and improving logistics, agricultural interventions such as mechanisation programmes and subsidies will continue to have limited impact.
The report also calls for stronger market governance to tackle artificial scarcity and hoarding, particularly in major trade hubs such as Kano, where field reports show traders diverting goods for export or holding stock to protect margins.
Meanwhile, restrictive import policies, such as the frozen meat ban in Calabar have exacerbated market distortions by reducing access to affordable protein, forcing consumers to substitute or downgrade nutritional quality.
SBM warns that the fragile relief observed in Q3 could easily unravel in the fourth quarter as festive demand intensifies. Without decisive action to restore supply-chain integrity and lower the “risk premium” on food movement, Nigeria’s food inflation battle may continue to stumble on the same structural fault lines.
