Yobe, Ogun top states with the highest food inflation rate in 2025
Yobe topped Nigeria’s food inflation chart in December 2025, recording a 15.2 percent year-on-year increase, even as national food prices showed signs of easing, new data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveal. Ogun followed with 14.1 percent and Abuja with 13.2 percent, while Akwa Ibom, Sokoto, and Plateau posted the slowest rises, underscoring sharp regional contrasts in food costs across the country.
Nationally, food inflation stood at 10.84 percent year-on-year, but fell by 0.36 percent month-on-month, reflecting lower prices of staples such as tomatoes, garri, eggs, beans, and onions. While states like Imo and Nasarawa recorded the steepest monthly increases, others including Plateau and Rivers saw declines, offering limited relief to households still strained by high food prices.
Rivers lawmakers reunite, regroup for Fubara’s impeachment
All 26 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly have closed ranks and revived impeachment proceedings against Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his deputy, Ngozi Odu, ending weeks of apparent division within the legislature and escalating the state’s deepening political crisis. The lawmakers emerged publicly on Friday to announce a unified decision to press ahead with the impeachment, mandating Speaker Martins Amaewhule to carry the process through to its conclusion.
In a statement read by Sylvanus Nwankwo, the lawmaker representing Omuma State Constituency, the Assembly accused the governor and his deputy of committing about seven impeachable offences, citing their conduct and response to the impeachment motion. The address, reportedly signed by all 26 lawmakers, including four who had earlier urged a peaceful resolution, said the executive had shown no remorse or formal response to the allegations. It further accused Governor Fubara of using sponsored media attacks to ridicule the Assembly, despite not having an official press secretary or commissioner for information
Supreme Court orders Lamido, sons to resume trial over N1.35bn charges
The Supreme Court has ordered the resumption of the corruption trial of former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, and his sons, Mustapha and Aminu Lamido, over alleged financial crimes totaling N1.35 billion, overturning their earlier discharge. In a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday in Abuja, Justice Abubakar Umar, leading a five-member panel, upheld an appeal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and set aside the July 2023 decision of the Court of Appeal that had struck out the charges against the defendants.
The apex court directed that Lamido, his sons, Aminu Wada Abubakar, and two companies, Bamaina Holdings Limited and Speeds International Limited, return to the Federal High Court in Abuja to answer the charges and present their defence. The defendants were initially arraigned before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu on a 37-count amended charge bordering on money laundering and abuse of office, with the EFCC alleging that Lamido, who governed Jigawa State from 2007 to 2015, laundered N1.35 billion in kickbacks from contractors handling state projects. While the Federal High Court had dismissed their no-case submission after the prosecution closed its case, the Court of Appeal later overturned that ruling. The EFCC’s successful appeal restores the trial, with the Supreme Court faulting the appellate court for discharging the defendants despite evidence linking them to the alleged offences.
After Farouk’s exit, Dangote Refinery petrol supply up 64%
https://businessday.ng/energy/article/after-farouks-exit-dangote-refinery-petrol-supply-up-64/
Nigeria’s petrol supply received a sharp boost in December as output from the Dangote Refinery surged by about 64 percent, easing pressure on the domestic market and reinforcing hopes of reduced reliance on fuel imports. Data from the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) show average local PMS supply climbed to about 32 million litres per day, up from roughly 19.5 million litres in November, one of the strongest monthly gains since the Lekki-based refinery began operations.
The increase was driven by improved refinery utilisation and smoother product evacuation, lifting national petrol sufficiency to around 29 days despite demand averaging more than 60 million litres per day during the festive period. Regulators say the rebound reflects stronger coordination across the downstream sector, with Dangote Refinery ramping up output alongside strategic support from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.
Tax overhaul turns crypto from escape hatch to tax base
https://businessday.ng/news/article/tax-overhaul-turns-crypto-from-escape-hatch-to-tax-base
Nigeria is ending crypto’s era as a financial escape hatch. From 2026, cryptocurrency transactions will be fully folded into the formal tax system under the Nigerian Tax Administration Act (NTAA) 2025, forcing digital assets out of the shadows and into the state’s revenue net. The new framework mandates that all crypto activity be linked to Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) and National Identification Numbers (NINs), with exchanges, brokers and other Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) required to enforce compliance, report transaction data and flag suspicious flows, effectively stripping centralised crypto trading of its long-standing anonymity.
The move targets one of the country’s fastest-growing but least regulated pools of wealth. Nigeria recorded an estimated $92.1 billion in crypto transactions between July 2024 and June 2025, most of it untaxed, even as the government collects less than 10 percent of GDP in taxes. By shifting the compliance burden to intermediaries and aligning with global standards such as the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, authorities aim to boost revenues, curb illicit finance and lift the tax-to-GDP ratio to 18 percent by 2027, signalling a decisive turn from informal digital wealth to accountable, taxable income.
Former Nigeria statistics chief warns inflation overhaul may mask real cost-of-living crisis
businessday.ng/business-economy/article/former-nigeria-statistics-chief-warns-inflation-overhaul-may-mask-real-cost-of-living-crisis/
Nigeria’s newly rebased inflation figures are under fresh scrutiny after Yemi Kale, group chief economist at Afreximbank and the architect of the country’s landmark 2014 GDP rebasing, warned that the overhaul of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) may be masking the true severity of the cost-of-living crisis. Speaking at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) economic outlook, Kale said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) appeared to have rushed the transition to a new CPI framework, creating gaps that undermine year-on-year inflation analysis just as households grapple with rising prices.
Kale argued that standard statistical practice requires a clear overlap between old and new inflation series, typically over a 12-month window, to preserve continuity. By declaring previous CPI data non-comparable while launching a new 2025 series, he said the NBS had created a “vacuum” for meaningful comparison. The controversy intensified after the NBS announced December 2025 headline inflation of 15.15 percent following a rebasing that shifted the base year from 2009 to 2024, a move that technically cut inflation from over 34 percent to about 15 percent. The bureau admitted that, without methodological adjustments, inflation would have appeared to spike to 31.2 percent, prompting it to adopt a 12-month average of 2024 as the reference base. Kale urged authorities to drop a defensive posture and engage independent experts to fix what he described as structural flaws, warning that credibility, not optics, is critical if official data is to reflect economic reality.
