Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 22.22% in April 2023, representing 0.18% points higher than the 22.04% recorded in the preceding month.
According to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) published on Monday, the inflation rate in April indicates that the CPI has increased for the fourth consecutive month this year, maintaining the highest rate in 17 years.
The April CPI reflected that when analyzed on a year-on-year basis, the inflation rate increased by 5.4% from 16.82% recorded in April 2022.
The Bureau reported that on a month-on-month basis, the All-Items Index in the month under review was 1.91%, representing 0.05% points higher than the 1.86% rate recorded in March 2023
Similarly, the report reflected that in April this year, the food inflation rate stood at 24.61% on a year-on-year basis, which was 6.24% points higher than the 18.37% recorded in April 2022. In the preceding month, the food inflation rate rose to 24.35%.
The statistics agency attributed the rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis to increases in prices of Oil and fat, Bread and cereals, Fish, Potatoes, Yam and other tubers, Fruits, Meat, Vegetable, and Spirits.
In addition, it reported that the “All items less farm produce” or Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce, stood at 20.14% in April 2023 on a year-on-year basis, indicating 5.96% increase when compared to the 14.18% recorded in the corresponding month of last year. The Core inflation rate in April was also higher than the 19.86% recorded in March 2023.
The Bureau further disclosed that the inflation rate in April were driven by very high increases in prices of gas, air transport, liquid fuel, vehicle spare parts, fuels, and lubricants for personal transport equipment, medical services, and road transport and listed the contributions of items on the divisional level to the increase in the headline index as food and non-alcoholic beverages (11.51%), housing water, electricity, gas and other fuel (3.72%), clothing and footwear (1.7%), and transport (1.45%).
A further analysis of the CPI report for the month of April on state-by-state basis indicated that all items inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Bayelsa (26.14%), Kogi (25.57%), and Rivers (24.95%) while Borno (19.06%), Taraba (19.64%) and Sokoto (19.90%) recorded the slowest rise on a year-on-year basis.
However, the report showed that on a month-on-month basis, the highest increases in all items inflation rate were recorded in Cross River (3.05%), Bayelsa (2.92%), Rivers (2.62%), while Katsina (0.52%), Jigawa (0.74%) and Osun (0.96%) recorded the slowest rise on.
In terms of food inflation on a year-on-year basis, the CPI report reflected that the highest rate was recorded in Kogi (29.50%), followed by Kwara (29.48%), and Bayelsa (29.38%), while Sokoto (19.55%), Taraba (20.20%) and Jigawa (20.68%) recorded the slowest rise.
