By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s inflation rate surged further, hitting a 28-year high of 33.2 per cent in March 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a report on Monday.
In the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March 2024, the NBS said this is 1.50 per cent higher than the 31.70 per cent recorded in the preceding month.
The CPI measures the average change over time in the prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living.
In the report, the agency said on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.2 per cent higher than the 22.04 per cent recorded in March 2023, and on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate at 3.02 per cent in March 2024 was 0.1 per cent higher than the 3.1 per cent achieved in February 2024, implying that the rate of increase in the average price level was more than the rate of increase in the average price level in February 2024.
In the period under review, urban inflation rose by 35.2 per cent last month on a year-on-year basis from 23.07 per cent in March 2023, and on a month-on-month basis, it was marginally lower by 0.00 per cent to 3.17 per cent from 3.17 per cent in February 2024.
The stats office also said the rural inflation rate in March 2024 was 31.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis versus 21.1 per cent in March 2023. On a month-on-month basis, it was 2.9 per cent, down by 0.2 per cent points compared to February 2024, which stood at 3.1 per cent.
As for the food inflation, it jumped to 40.01 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which is 15.6 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in March 2023 (24.5 per cent).
The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following items: garri, millet, akpu uncooked fermented (which are under the bread and cereals class), yam tuber, water yam (under potatoes, yam, and other tubers class), dried fish sardine, mudfish dried (under fish class), palm oil, vegetable oil (under oil and fat), beef feet, beef head, liver (under meat class), coconut, watermelon (under fruit class), and Lipton tea, Bournvita, Milo (under Coffee, Tea and Cocoa Class).
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in March 2024 was 3.6 per cent which shows a 0.2 per cent decrease compared to the rate recorded in February 2024 (3.8 per cent).
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had recently said inflation would begin to cool in May 2024, which coincides with one year in office for President Bola Tinubu.