By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s inflation hit an almost 17-year high as the price of goods and services surged further by 20.52 per cent in the month of August 2022 from 19.64 per cent recorded in the previous month.
This represents the highest rate since September 2005, according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.
The data showed that Nigeria’s CPI rose by 20.52 per cent year-on-year in August 2022 and on a month-on-month basis, the index rose by 1.77 per cent compared to the 1.82 per cent increase recorded in the previous month.
Also, the urban inflation rate stood at 20.95 per cent, 3.36 per cent higher than the 17.59 per cent recorded in August 2021. The rural inflation rate in August 2022 was 20.12 per cent on a year-on-year basis; 3.69 per cent higher than the 16.43 per cent recorded in August 2021.
In the report, the NBS disclosed that food inflation rose to 23.12 per cent in August 2022, representing a 1.1 percentage point increase compared to 22.02 per cent recorded in the previous month.
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate stood at 1.98 per cent, 0.07 per cent lower than the 2.04 per cent recorded in the previous month.
According to the NBS, the rise in food inflation was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, food product, potatoes, yams, and other tubers, fish, meat, oil, and fat.
Meanwhile, the average annual rate of food inflation for the 12-month period ending August 2022 over the previous 12-month average was 19.02 per cent, which was a 1.48 per cent decline from the average annual rate of change recorded in August 2021 (20.50 per cent).
The ‘’All items less farm produce’’ or core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce stood at 17.20 per cent in August 2022 on a year-on-year basis; up by 0.94 per cent when compared to 16.26 per cent recorded in July 2022.
On a month-on-month basis, the core inflation rate was 1.59 per cent in August 2022. This was down by 0.17 per cent when compared to 1.75 per cent recorded in July 2022.
Notably, the highest increases were recorded in prices of Gas, Liquid fuel, Solid fuel, Passenger transport by road, Passenger transport by Air, fuel and lubricants for personal transport equipment, Cleaning, Repair, and Hire of clothing.
In August 2022, all items inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Ebonyi (25.33 per cent), Rivers (23.70 per cent), Bayelsa (23.01 per cent), while Jigawa (17.30 per cent), Borno (17.56 per cent) and Zamfara (18.04 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in headline Year-on-Year inflation.
Meanwhile, 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), while Jigawa (17.77 per cent), Zamfara (18.79 per cent) and Oyo (19.80 per cent) recorded the slowest rise on year-on-year food inflation.
