Nigeria’s inflation hits 20.25%, highest in 17 years

Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 20.52% in August, the highest since September 2005, the latest report has revealed.

The inflation figure rose from 19.64% recorded in July, according to details of the inflation figures published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

The Consumer Price Index report by the NBS showed that Nigeria’s CPI rose by 1.77% on a month-on-month basis, compared to the 1.82% increase recorded in the previous month.

The new inflation rate raises concerns in Africa’s biggest economy, placing pressure on the apex bank to increase interest rates.

The NBS said Thursday that the urban inflation rate stood at 20.95%, which is 3.36% higher compared to the 17.59 % recorded in August 2021.

The rural inflation rate in August 2022 was 20.12% on a year-on-year basis, 3.69% higher compared to the 16.43% recorded in August 2021.

The report added that food inflation rose to 23.12 per cent in August 2022 on a year-on-year basis, representing a 2.82 per cent increase when compared to 20.30 per cent in August 2021.

“This rise in the food inflation was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, food products like potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, meat, oil and fat,” the report said.

“On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in August was 1.98 per cent, this was a 0.07 per cent decline compared to the rate recorded in July 2022 (2.04 per cent).

This decline, it said, was attributed to the reduction in prices of some food items such as tubers, garri, local rice and vegetables.

The report showed increases were recorded in all classifications of individual consumption according to purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the headline index.

The report read, “On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in August 2022 was 1.77 per cent, this was 0.05 per cent lower than the rate recorded in July 2022 (1.82 per cent). This means that in August 2022 the headline inflation rate (month–on–month basis) declined by 0.05 per cent.

“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending August 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 17.07 per cent, showing a 0.47 per cent increase compared to 16.60 per cent recorded in August 2021.”

States

In August, the report said food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kwara (30.80 per cent), Ebonyi (28.06 per cent) and Rivers (27.64 per cent).

However, Jigawa (17.77 per cent), Zamfara (18.79 per cent) and Oyo (19.80 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in food