World Bank Dismisses Nigeria’s Single-Digit Inflation Target

The World Bank has said the Federal Government’s ambition to achieve single-digit inflation in the short term is unrealistic, warning that Nigeria remains among a handful of African countries still grappling with high Consumer price inflation.

In its latest Africa’s Pulse report released on Tuesday, the Bank projected that Nigeria, alongside Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Sudan, Zambia, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zimbabwe, will continue to record double-digit inflation rates through 2025.

The report revealed that while 37 of Africa’s 47 economies are projected to maintain single-digit inflation by 2026, Nigeria remains an outlier due to persistent structural challenges, including currency depreciation, high food and energy prices, and supply bottlenecks that continue to fuel price instability.

The development contradicts the projection undermines the Federal Government’s optimism that its recent fiscal and monetary reforms, including the FX unification, fuel subsidy removal, and the Central Bank’s tightening measures, would quickly drive inflation down to single digits

The PUNCH reports that key government officials in the current administration, including the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Wale Edun, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Olayemi Cardoso, have repeatedly assured Nigerians that ongoing fiscal and monetary reforms would help bring inflation down to single digits in the near term.

At the CBN Governor’s Annual Lecture Series at the Lagos Business School, held last week in Lagos, Cardoso said a single-digit inflation rate remains its medium-term target.

The insistence stems from an argument by some research organisations that the National Bureau of Statistics data, which puts the country’s headline inflation at 20.12 per cent, overestimates the general price level.

“The idea is to ensure that in the medium term we achieve single-digit inflation,” he said at the gathering.

But the World Bank in its evaluation noted that despite a broad wave of disinflation sweeping across Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria remains one of the few countries still trapped in double-digit inflation, even as price growth across the region slows to historic lows.

The report released biannually is titled, “Pathways to Job Creation in Africa.”

It read, “Consumer price inflation has continued to recede across most Sub-Saharan African

countries, albeit at varying speeds. After peaking at 9.3 per cent in 2022, the region’s

median inflation rate declined to 4.5 per cent in 2024 and is projected to stabilize between

3.9 and 4.0 per cent annually over 2025–26. The number of countries in the region with single-digit inflation rates has increased from 27 in 2022 to 37 in 2025–26.

“In 2025, nearly 60 per cent of Sub-Saharan African countries have experienced a slowdown in consumer price inflation from last year. However, within this group, nine countries, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, are still expected to record double-digit inflation rates.”