The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday reported that Nigeria’s inflation rose to 21.47% in November from 21.09% recorded in October, representing the 10th consecutive monthly rise in the general price level.
The NBS, in its latest ‘Consumer Price Index (CPI) November 2022 Report’, indicated that the November inflation rate was the highest level since September 2005 when the rate stood at 24.32%.
The statistics agency attributed the increase in the year-on-year inflation rate in the month under review primarily to increase in cost of importation due to the persistent currency depreciation and general increase in the cost of production.
According to the Bureau, in the month under review food inflation rose to 24.13%, from 23.72% recorded in the previous month, largely due to increases in prices of bread and cereals, oil and fat, potatoes, yam and other tubers, food products, fish.
The report also showed that the “All items Less Farm Produce’’ indices or Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce, increased to 18.24% in November 2022 on a year-on-year basis, representing 48.52 basis points increase when compared to 17.76% recorded in the preceding month.
The Bureau also reported that the highest increases in the core basket were recorded in prices of Gas, Liquid fuel, Passenger transport by Air, Vehicles spare parts, and Solid fuel.
A further analysis of the CPI report reflected that on a year-on-year basis the urban inflation rate rose to 22.09%, indicating an increase when compared to 21.63% recorded in the previous month and 15.92% recorded in the corresponding month of 2021.
On a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation index increased by 1.5%. This is higher than the 1.33% recorded in the previous month and 1.12% recorded in November 2021.
The NBS further clarified that the rural inflation rate in November marginally increased to 20.88% on a year-on-year basis; compared to 20.57% recorded in the preceding month and 14.89% recorded in November 2021.
On a month-on-month basis, the rural inflation index increased by 1.3%. This is higher than the 1.16% recorded in the previous month and 1.04% recorded in November 2021.
A further analysis of the report on state-by-state basis showed that in terms of headline inflation, Ebonyi State recorded the highest rate at 26.11% in the month under review, followed by Kogi and Rivers States with 25.84% and 24.45% respectively.
On the flip side, Sokoto (19.02%) and Cross river (19.17%) recorded the slowest rise in headline Year-on-Year inflation.
The Bureau further reported that Kwara State led the list in terms of food inflation in November 2022 with 29.74%, followed by Kogi State with 29.51% and Ebonyi with 28.25% while Kaduna (19.30%), Sokoto (19.48%) and Jigawa (20.55%) recorded the slowest rise in year-on-year food inflation.
