In December 2023, Nigeria witnessed a surge in its annual inflation rate, reaching 28.92%, up from 28.20% in November, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

The statistics office revealed that the headline inflation rate for December 2023 witnessed a 0.72% increase compared to the rate in November 2023.

On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate for December 2023 was 7.58 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in December 2022, which stood at 21.34%.

Additionally, on the month-on-month comparison, the headline inflation rate for December 2023 reached 2.29%, surpassing November 2023’s rate of 2.09% by 0.20%.

Items that contributed to the increase in the Headline index include food & non-alcoholic beverages, housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuel, clothing & footwear, transport, among others.

The Urban inflation rate on a year-on-year basis reached 31.00%, marking an increase of 8.98% points compared to the 22.01% recorded in December 2022.

The Rural inflation rate on a year-on-year basis stood at 27.10%, reflecting an increase of 6.38% compared to the 20.72% recorded in December 2022.

Food inflation
As per the report, the food inflation rate for December 2023 accelerated to 33.93% on a year-on-year basis, marking a 10.18% increase compared to the rate recorded in December 2022 (23.75%).

On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in December 2023 was 2.72%, marking a 0.30% increase compared to the rate recorded in November 2023 (2.42%).

The rise in Food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, oil and fat, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, meat, fruit, milk, cheese, and egg

Food prices have been on a steady increase in recent years, and the situation has been exacerbated by government policies, particularly the removal of subsidies on petrol.

Source: Business Insider