By Adedapo Adesanya
Inflation rate in Nigeria in the month of August 2020 rose by 13.22 per cent year-on-year, 0.40 per cent higher than the 12.82 per cent reached in the month of July.
This indicated that consumers in the country paid 13.22 per cent more than what they paid for the same goods and services in the same period of last year.
According to the data released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the increase in the inflation rate was due to the 16.00 per cent rise in the composite food index rose in August 2020 compared to 15.48 per cent in July 2020.
The rise in the food index was because of increases in prices of bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, meat, fish, fruits, oils and fats and vegetables in the month under review.
Also in the month, there were increases in the prices of passenger transport by air, hospital services, medical services, pharmaceutical products, maintenance and repair of personal transport equipment, vehicle spare parts, motor cars, passenger transport by road, miscellaneous services relating to the dwelling, repair of furniture and paramedical services.
In the NBS report titled Consumer Price Index CPI/Inflation, it was stressed that increases were also recorded in all the 12 Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the headline index.
On a month-on-month basis, the headline index increased by 1.34 per cent in August 2020, 0.09 per cent higher than the rate recorded in July 2020 (1.25 per cent).
During the period under review, urban inflation rate increased by 13.83 per cent in August 2020 from 13.40 per cent recorded in July 2020, while the rural inflation rate increased by 12.65 per cent in August 2020 from 12.28 per cent in the seventh month.
On a month-on-month basis, the urban index rose by 1.42 per cent in August 2020, up by 0.15 from 1.27 per cent recorded in the preceding month, while the rural index also rose by 1.27 per cent in August 2020, up by 0.04 from 1.23 per cent in July.
In August 2020, the NBS said, all items index on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kogi (17.29 per cent), Bauchi (15.77 per cent) and Ebonyi and Yobe (14.71 per cent), while Lagos (11.45 per cent), Kwara (11.22 per cent) and Abuja (11.17 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in headline year-on-year inflation.
In August 2020, food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kogi (22.03 per cent), Kwara (19.11 per cent) and Edo (17.95 per cent), while Gombe (14.33 per cent), Kano (13.99 per cent) and Bauchi (13.42 per cent) recorded the slowest rise
