Nigeria’s inflation rises to 20-year high

Nigeria’s headline inflation has risen to a 20-year high of 28.2 per cent in November, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed.

The NBS, in a report released yesterday, stated that the headline inflation rate increased to 28.20 per cent, relative to October 2023 headline inflation rate, which was 27.33 per cent.

Daily Trust Saturday reports that the figure is the highest record from data obtained on the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The bank’s data started from 2023.

The NBS stated that food inflation rate also increased to 32.84 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which was 8.72 per cent points higher, compared to the rate recorded in November 2022 (24.13 per cent).

“The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increase in prices of bread and cereals, oil and fat, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, fruit, meat, vegetables and coffee, tea and cocoa,” it stated.

Also, “items from farm produce and energy” or core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produces and energy, stood at 22.38 per cent on a year-on year basis.

“This is up by 4.39 per cent when compared to the 17.99 per cent recorded in November 2022. The highest increases were recorded in prices of passenger transport by road, medical services, passenger transport by air, actual and imputed rentals for housing, pharmaceutical products, accommodation service etc.

On state analysis, the report stated that food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kogi (41.29 per cent), Kwara (40.72 per cent) and Rivers (40.22 per cent), while Bauchi (26.14 per cent), Borno (27.34 per cent) and Jigawa (27.63 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in food inflation.