The National Bureau of Statistics has said the headline inflation increased to an all-time high of 33.69 % in April 2024.
This was disclosed by NBS’s Consumer Price Index report released on Wednesday.
NBS attributed the increase to the high cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages.
According to the NBS, food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed 17.45 percent to inflation during the review period, housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuel contributed 5.64 percent, and clothing and footwear contributed 2.58 percent.
In addition, the report revealed the food inflation rate in April 2024 was 40.53 per cent compared to 40.4 per cent recorded in March 2024.
The inflation soard by 15.92 per cent on a year-on-year basis, compared to the 24.61 per cent rate of April 2023.
The NBS attributed the increase in food inflation to increases in the prices of bread and cereals, oil and fats, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, fruit, meat, vegetables, milk, cheese, and eggs.
In urban areas, the inflation rate increased to 36.00 %, which was 12.61 percentage points higher than the 23.39 % recorded in April 2023.
In April 2024, rural inflation stood at 31.64 per cent annually. This was up by 10.50 percentage points from the previous year’s 21.14 per cent.
Recall that The Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria raised the monetary policy rate (MPR), which benchmarks interest rates, from 22.75 percent to 24.75 percent.
The CBN governor had said the major objective of the CBN is to manage inflation but said the bank is not unmindful of the impact that the interest rate increases are having.
