Rents, food, others push inflation to 31.7% in February

Nigeria’s headline inflation rose to 31.70 per cent in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed.

The NBS, in its report stated that the inflation figure rose from 29.90 per cent in January.

Daily Trust Saturday reports that Nigeria’s headline inflation has been on the rise consecutively in the past 15 months despite the raising of interest rate by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The NBS noted that on a year-onyear basis, the headline inflation rate was 9.79 per cent higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2023, which was 21.91 per cent.

“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in February 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (February 2023),” it stated.

It went on to state that food inflation rate increased by 37.92 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which was 13.57 per cent higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2023 (24.35 per cent).

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

Inflation, food prices highest in Kogi

The report stated that Kogi State experienced the highest change in prices of goods and commodities. It stated that on all items, inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kogi (37.98 per cent), Oyo (36.60 per cent), Bauchi (35.62 per cent), Borno (26.28 per cent), Taraba (26.72 per cent) and Benue (27.40 per cent).

For food inflation, the highest rise on year-on-year basis was in Kogi (46.32 per cent), Rivers (44.34 per cent), and Kwara (43.05 per cent), while Bauchi (31.46 per cent), Plateau (32.56 per cent) and Taraba (33.23 per cent) recorded the slowest rise.