Nigeria’s inflation rate rises to 21.91 percent

Nigeria’s inflation rate has increased from January’s 21.82 percent to 21.91 percent in February 2023, a recent Consumer Price Index report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), revealed on Wednesday.

According to the NBS report titled ‘Consumer Price Index (February 2023)’, the uptick in the inflation rate was driven by the naira crisis across the country and uncertainties relating to the just concluded presidential election.

The report further highlighted that the highest increases were recorded in prices of food, had, passenger transport by air, fuels, lubricants for personal transport equipment, vehicle spare parts, among others.

NBS noted that the rise in food inflation was caused by increase in prices of oil and fat, fish, meats, vegetable, yam and other tubers, bread and cereals.

“In February 2023, the headline inflation rate rose to 21.91% compared to January 2023 headline inflation rate which was 21.82%.

“Looking at the trend, the February 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.09% points when compared to January 2023 headline inflation rate.

“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in February 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., February 2022),” the report highlighted.

The NBS noted that on a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All-Items Index in February 2023 was 1.71 percent, which was 0.16 percent points lower than the rate recorded in January 2023 (1.87 percent).

“This means that in February 2023, on average, the general price level was 0.16% percent lower relative to January 2023.

“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months period ending February 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 19.87%, showing a 3.15% points increase compared to 16.73% recorded in February 2022. The increases were recorded in all COICOP divisions that yielded the headline index,” the report stated.

It was also reported that in February 2023, all items’ inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Bauchi at 24.59 percent, Rivers at 24.40 percent, and Ondo at 24.27 percent.

“While Sokoto at 18.90 percent, Borno at 18.94 percent and Cross River at 19.62 percent, recorded the slowest rise in headline year-on-year inflation.”