Alcohol, Food Drives Nigeria’s Inflation Rate

Following an increase in Nigeria’s inflation rate, data has shown that key sectors that drove up inflation figures were food and alcoholic beverages, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel, clothing and footwear, and housing.

Nigeria’s inflation rate increased for the fourth consecutive month in 2023 to 22.22 per cent in April from the 22.04 per cent recorded in March.

Despite the World Bank’s alert that Nigeria’s accelerated inflation growth had eroded the N30,000 minimum wage by 55 per cent and widened the poverty net with an estimated five million people in 2022, the April 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.18 percentage points when compared to the March 2023 headline inflation rate.

The recent development, is according to the Commodity Price Index report published on Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.40 percentage points higher compared to the rate recorded in April 2022, which was 16.82 per cent.

According to the NBS, the percentage change in the average Commodity Price Index for the twelve months ending April 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months was 20.82 per cent, showing a 4.37 per cent increase compared to the 16.45 per cent recorded in April 2022.

Flippstack understands that the upward surge sees inflation increase for the fourth consecutive month after slowing to 21.34 per cent in December 2022.