By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s headline inflation increased by 0.61 per cent to 27.33 per cent in October 2023 compared with the 26.72 per cent recorded in September 2023, the highest in 18 years.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.24 per cent points higher than the 21.09 per cent recorded in October 2022.
Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in the month under review was 1.73 per cent, which was 0.37 per cent lower than the 2.1 per cent achieved in September 2023, meaning that in October 2023, the rate of increase in the average price level was less than the rate of increase in the average price level in September 2023.
Giving a breakdown, the NBS noted that Food and Non-alcoholic beverages contributed 14.2 per cent to the headline index, followed by Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas, and Other Fuels with 4.6 per cent, and Clothing and Footwear saw a 2.1 per cent contribution.
Transport added 1.8 per cent while Furnishings, Household Equipment and Maintenance added 1.4 per cent and Education saw a 1.1 per cent rise. Others like Health, Miscellaneous Goods and Services among others saw less than 1 per cent contribution respectively.
The stats office showed that Nigeria’s food inflation rate in September 2023 was 31.52 per cent on a year-on-year basis, 7.8 per cent higher than the 23.72 per cent reported in October 2022.
The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of oil and fat, bread, cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, fruit, meat, vegetables milk, cheese, and eggs.
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in October 2023 was 1.91 per cent, this was 0.54 per cent lower than 2.45 per cent posted in September 2023. The decline in food inflation on a month-on-month basis was caused by a fall in the rate of increase in the average prices of potatoes, yam and other tubers, bread and cereals, fruits, and fish.
The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending October 2023 over the previous twelve-month average was 26.33 per cent, which was a 6.5 per cent point increase from the average annual rate of change recorded in October 2022 (19.83 per cent).
