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Nigeria’s headline inflation rate fell for the seventh consecutive month in October 2025, dropping to 16.05%, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The surge comes amid mounting economic pressures and social instability, challenging the country’s long-standing reputation as one of Africa’s most peaceful and stable economies.
Data released Monday by the country’s statistics agency, CAPMAS, showed that inflation climbed to 12.5% in October 2025 from 11.7% in September — marking the first acceleration since May.
While the IMF acknowledges that currency swaps can ease short-term fiscal pressure, it warned that such arrangements can expose countries to new forms of volatility.
The decline marks a rare relief in South Africa’s prolonged unemployment crisis, which has persisted above 30% since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The upgrade reflects Uganda’s stronger growth momentum relative to peers and expectations that major oil developments will begin to come onstream by late 2026.
Business activity across major African economies showed mixed performance in October, with Nigeria recording the strongest expansion while South Africa and Egypt slipped deeper into contraction, according to S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) data.
Kenya’s private sector activity rose to a six-month high in October 2025, driven by new product launches and increased use of discounts and promotional pricing as firms sought to stimulate demand in a gradually recovering economy.
Nigeria’s latest Eurobond issuance could keep the country’s external debt-to-total debt ratio slightly above the Debt Management Office (DMO) threshold of 45% by year-end, according to analysts at CSL Research.
This comes at a time when President Bola Tinubu has introduced sweeping reforms since assuming office in May 2023 to boost investor confidence in Nigeria and achieve his $1trn GDP target by 2030.
The 160-basis-point increase from 1.9% in August marks a shift in the Bank of Botswana’s monetary stance after more than two years of steady easing.
Nigeria’s subnationals are learning to earn, not just receive. They’re digitising taxes, reforming budgets, and using infrastructure policy to build fiscal resilience beyond Federal allocations.
Figures from the Bank of Mozambique show reserves rose by 1.25% month-on-month from $3.99bn in July, covering more than three months of estimated import needs for goods and services.
Eyob Tekalign, the new governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday that the public should expect a turnaround.
Across the continent, currency weakness has continued to shape inflation dynamics, import costs, and investor sentiment. For instance, a weaker naira increases import bills and inflationary pressures while signaling economic fragility and lower investor confidence.
The average cost of preparing a pot of jollof rice for a Ghanaian family of five rose in September 2025, despite the country being among Africa’s five strongest currencies that month, according to a new jollof Index.
GoldBod attributed the performance to improved oversight and its continued collaboration between key stakeholders which has helped curb smuggling and boost repatriation of proceeds.
Inflation, currency volatility, and debt stress continue to shape Africa’s monetary path in 2025, prompting tighter policies in fragile economies and gradual easing where stability has improved.
The IMF has projected that SSA’s economic growth will remain unchanged in 2025 despite new US tariffs that took effect in August and raised concerns about trade disruptions.
The 2.1 percentage-point drop marks the sharpest decline since April, when consumer prices began their downward trend. Based on the old methodology, September’s inflation rate is the lowest since May 2022.