July 15, 2022

Nigeria’s consumer price index (CPI), hit a five-year record high leapfrogging from 17.71 per cent in May to 18.60 per cent in June 2022, driven by rising prices of staples like bread, rice and maize and the cost of diesel, which is used to generate power.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its consumer price index (CPI) report for June 2022, released on Friday said inflation rose for the fifth straight month, hitting 18.6%, compared with 17.71% in May.

“On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate increased to 1.82 per cent in June 2022, this is 0.03 per cent higher than the rate recorded in May 2022 (1.78 per cent)”.

Food prices, a major headline component for Nigerian inflation, were up 20.6% year-on-year in June. Core inflation, which excludes prices of farm produce, was up 2.66 percentage points to 15.75% during the period.

“This rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, food products, potatoes, yam, and other tubers, meat, fish, oil and fat, and wine,” the statistics bureau said.

Inflation, at its highest since January 2017, and the state of the economy are major issues for voters as the country heads for a national election in February, when incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari will step down.

“The combined effect of power costs, exchange rate depreciation and money supply saturation is manifesting in a spiralling inflationary cycle,” Financial Derivatives Company said in a note to clients.

The report further revealed that “in the month of June 2022, the urban inflation rate increased to 19.09 per cent (year-on-year); this is a 0.74 per cent increase compared to 18.35 per cent recorded in June 2021.”