The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the coordinating agency for Nigeria’s national statistics system, has reported that Nigeria’s Composite Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation rate, surges to 20.5 percent in August this year, representing the highest rate since September 2005.
According to the Bureau in its latest ‘Consumer Price Index (CPI) report’ published on Thursday, the latest rate indicated increase in the general price level of the economy by 1.77 percent on a month-on-month basis.
The report indicated that when analyzed on urban-rural basis year-on-year, the urban inflation rose to 20.95 percent, which is 3.36 percent higher than the 17.59 percent recorded in August 2021 while the rural inflation rate surged to 20.12 percent, indicating 3.69 percent higher compared to 16.43 percent recorded in August 2021.
On food inflation rate, the statistics agency reported that food inflation rose to 23.12% in the month under review, representing a 1.1%-point increase compared to 22.02% recorded in the previous month.
The NBS attributed the rise in food inflation primarily to increases in prices of bread and cereals, food product, potatoes, yam and other tuber, fish, meat, oil and fat.
Meanwhile, the average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve-month period ending August 2022 over the previous twelve-month average was 19.02%, which was a 1.48% decline from the average annual rate of change recorded in August 2021 (20.50%).
The CPI report also reflected that Core inflation or the “All items less farm produce”, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce, stood at 17.20% in August 2022 on a year-on-year basis; but up by 0.94% when compared to 16.26% recorded in July 2022.
On a month-on-month basis, the core inflation rate was 1.59% in the month under review, down by 0.17% when compared to 1.75% recorded in July 2022.
The report showed that 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.
According to the agency, states that recorded the highest all items inflation rate in August this year on a year-on-year basis was highest in Ebonyi (25.33%), Rivers (23.70%), Bayelsa (23.01%), while Jigawa (17.30%), Borno (17.56%) and Zamfara (18.04%) recorded the slowest rise in headline Year-on-Year inflation.
However, food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Kwara (30.80%), Ebonyi (28.06%) and Rivers (27.64%), while Jigawa (17.77%), Zamfara (18.79%) and Oyo (19.80%) recorded the slowest rise on year-on-year food inflation.
