Nigeria’s inflation rate in the month of July 2022 rose to a 17-year high of 19.64%, up from the 18.6% recorded in the preceding month.
The latest inflation rate was published on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the national statistics coordinating agency, in its Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for the month under review.
The last time Nigeria’s inflation was above 19.64% was in September 2005 when it rose to 24.32%.
The statistics agency attributed the uptick in the inflation rate largely to spiking rate in the food and core index.
According to the NBS, the urban inflation rate rose by 2.08% to 20.09% in July 2022 from 18.01% recorded in July 2021, while the rural inflation rate hit 19.22% from 16.75% recorded in the corresponding period of 2021.
The food inflation rose to its highest level in 14 months, standing at 22.02% in July 2022, representing a 1.42% basic point increase compared to 20.6% recorded in the previous month.
The Bureau further reported that on a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in July stood at 2.04%, this is 0.01% lower than 2.05% recorded in the previous month.
It attributed the rise in food inflation to increases in prices of bread and cereals, food products, potatoes, yam and other tubers, meat, fish, oil, and fat.
The agency also disclosed that the average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve-month period ended July 2022 over the previous twelve-month average was 18.75%, representing a 1.42% points decline from the average annual rate of change recorded in July 2021 (20.16%).
On ‘’All items less farm produce’’ or core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce core inflation, the NBS reported that the rate rose to 16.26% in the month under review, compared to 15.75% recorded in the previous month.
The July rate also represents the highest core inflation rate since January 2017, when the rate stood at 17.8%.
On a month-on-month basis, the core inflation rate was 1.75% in July, representing 0.20% points higher when compared to the 1.56% recorded in June 2022.
Notably, the highest increases were recorded in prices of Gas, Liquid fuel, Solid fuel, Passenger transport by road, Passenger transport by Air, Garments, Cleaning, Repair and Hire of clothing.
A further analysis of the inflation rate on state by state basis showed that Akwa Ibom State recorded the highest inflation rate in the month under review with 22.88%, closely followed by Ebonyi State with 22.51%, Kogi (22.08%), Bayelsa (21.6%), and Rivers State (21.37%).
In terms of food inflation rate, Kwara State recorded the highest with 29.28%, followed by Akwa Ibom State, (27.22%); Kogi State, 26.08%; while Ebonyi, and Ekiti State recorded 25.83% and 24.78% respectively.
