By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s inflation rate increased to 33.95 per cent in May 2024, missing a target set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest data released on Saturday said this is higher than the April 2024 inflation rate of 33.69 per cent by 0.26 per cent.
The Governor of the CBN, Mr Yemi Cardoso, had earlier this year projected that Nigeria’s inflation will begin to cool by May 2024.
However, the data revealed that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.54 per cent points higher than the rate recorded in May 2023, which was 22.41 per cent.
This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in the month of May 2024 when compared to May 2023.
On the contrary, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in May 2024 was 2.14 per cent, which was 0.15 per cent lower than the rate recorded in April 2024 at 2.29 per cent.
This, according to the NBS, means that in the month of May 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is less than the rate of increase in the average price level in April 2024.
The NBS report also revealed that the food inflation rate in May 2024 was 40.66 per cent on a year-on-year basis, which was 15.84 per cent points higher than the 24.82 per cent recorded in May 2023.
It added that the rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of Semovita, Oatflake, Yam flour prepackage, Garri, Bean, etc (which are under Bread and Cereals Class), Irish Potatoes, Yam, Water Yam, etc (under Potatoes, Yam and other Tubers Class), Palm Oil, Vegetable Oil, etc (under Oil and fat), Stockfish, Mudfish, Crayfish, etc (under Fish class), Beef Head, Chicken-live, Pork Head, Bush Meat, etc (under Meat class).
“Like the month-on-month headline inflation, the month-on-month Food inflation rate in May 2024 was 2.28 per cent, which also shows a decrease of 0.22 per cent compared to the rate recorded in April 2024 (2.50 per cent).
“The fall in the Food inflation on a Month-on-Month basis was caused by a fall in the rate of increase in the average prices of Palm Oil, Groundnut Oil (under Oil and Fats Class), Yam, Irish Potatoe, Cassava Tuber (under Potatoes, Yam & Other Tubers Class), Wine, Bournvita, Milo, Nescafe (under Coffee, Tea and Coco Class).
“The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending May 2024 over the previous twelve-month average was 34.06 per cent, which was 10.41 per cent points increase from the average annual rate of change recorded in May 2023 (23.65 per cent),” the agency stated.
This could also take the CBN back to the drawing board as it has in recent months moved to curb inflation by increasing the interest rate by 750 basis points from 18.75 per cent to 26.25 per cent.