Rice-y Business: Jollof Pot Costs Technically Fell, But Nigerians Are Still Crying Over Spilled Pepper.
The Great Jollof Deception: Why Your Wallet Isn’t Feeling That 3.17% Drop
Hold your party spoons, Nigeria! According to SBM Intelligence’s National Average Jollof Index, the average cost of cooking our national treasure—a pot of jollof rice—apparently dropped by a majestic 3.17% in the third quarter of 2025. Sounds like relief, right? Wrong.
SBM Intelligence warns that this “improvement” is essentially a statistical sleight of hand. It’s not your market woman giving you a discount; it’s the government changing the way they do math!
The CPI Trick: The slight drop is largely due to the recent rebasing of Nigeria’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which updated the reference year from 2009 to 2024. This change technically lowered the reported year-on-year food inflation rate from a terrifying 39.53% (2024) to a still-high-but-less-terrifying 22.74% (2025).
The Bottom Line: As SBM hilariously puts it, this figure is compared against an “already hyper-inflated 2024 price baseline, not genuine consumer-level price relief.” Basically, the statistics now compare today’s astronomical price to yesterday’s equally astronomical price, making the drop look bigger than your actual savings.
The Real Price of Jollof: Truck Drivers and Toll Gates of Terror
If statistical manipulation isn’t the reason for high prices, what is? SBM Intelligence didn’t mince words: The real cost of your dinner is determined by insecurity and organized highway extortion, which functions as an “unofficial, deeply entrenched tax on commerce.”
| Extortion Nightmare | The Hidden Cost in Your Rice |
| Informal Highway Taxes | Police, Customs, and local task forces demand undocumented “facilitation fees” ranging from N5,000 to N20,000 per trip. These costs are immediately added to the price of your rice. |
| Security Escorts | In volatile regions, traders pay private vigilante groups up to N50,000 per trip to escort high-value goods like bags of rice. The security for your rice is often more expensive than a flight! |
| Bad Roads | Potholes cause wear and tear, increase fuel consumption, demand “hazard bonuses” for drivers, and—worst of all—spoil precious perishables like the tomatoes needed for the perfect jollof sauce. |
The Trader’s Survival Strategy: To cope with this chaotic operational environment, traders don’t absorb the cost; they simply add an invisible surcharge of 20-30% to the base price of the goods. Congratulations, you’re paying for a politician’s new wardrobe via an illegal police checkpoint.
Regional Jollof Mayhem: Who’s Paying the Most?
The cost of this national dish continues to show regional drama, proving that logistics chaos is local:
North West (Kano): Prices went up, hitting N30,950. The cost and risk of moving goods through insecure corridors completely negated any benefit from early harvest.
North East (Bauchi): The anomaly! Prices saw the sharpest decline (over 15%), thanks to a local, sudden influx of harvest yields. A statistical miracle, not a policy success.
South East (Port Harcourt): The most expensive party destination! Despite being a port city, the price rose to N33,200. The culprit? Domestically driven high operational costs and terrible internal logistics.
South South & Central: Prices remain stubbornly high and fragile, reflecting reliance on supplies from volatile northern states and a lack of systemic security.
SBM’s Urgent Advice: Stop Looking at the Stats, Fix the Roads!
SBM Intelligence warns policymakers to abandon the “comfort” of technically lowered inflation figures. The urgent recommendations are not about economics; they’re about common sense and security:
Declare War on Insecurity: Make the restoration of security in agricultural zones a foundational economic infrastructure project. (Because dead farmers produce zero rice).
Dismantle the Extortion Racket: Declare a state of emergency on key federal roads to stop the illegal checkpoints and the criminal architecture of escort fees. (Make the highway extortionists fear the government more than they fear a bad road).
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