Nigeria’s inflation rate has risen to 33.95% in May 2024, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
This marks an increase of 0.26 percentage points compared to the headline inflation rate of April 2024, as detailed in the NBS Consumer Price Index report released on Saturday.
On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.54 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in May 2023, which stood at 22.41%. This indicates a significant increase in the inflation rate over the past year.
Conversely, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in May 2024 was 2.14%, showing a slight decrease of 0.15 percentage points from the rate recorded in April 2024, which was 2.29%. This suggests that the rate of increase in average prices in May was lower compared to April 2024.
The NBS report also highlighted that the food inflation rate in May 2024 was 40.66% on a year-on-year basis, which was 15.84 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in May 2023, which was 24.82%.
The rise in food inflation year-on-year was attributed to significant price increases in items such as Semovita, Oatflakes, Yam flour prepackage, Garri, Beans, Irish potatoes, Yams, Water yams, Palm oil, Vegetable oil, Stockfish, Mudfish, Crayfish, Beef head, Chicken-live, Pork head, and Bush meat.
On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in May 2024 was 2.28%, showing a decrease of 0.22 percentage points from the rate recorded in April 2024, which was 2.50%. The month-on-month decrease was due to a slower rate of increase in average prices of Palm oil, Groundnut oil, Yams, Irish potatoes, Cassava tubers, Wine, Bournvita, Milo, and Nescafe.
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The average annual rate of food inflation for the twelve months ending May 2024 was 34.06%, which was an increase of 10.41 percentage points from the average annual rate recorded in May 2023, which was 23.65%.
In response to the rising inflation, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) increased the interest rate by 150 basis points from 24.75% to 26.25% during its Monetary Policy Committee meeting in May.
This marks the third consecutive increase in the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) as the CBN aims to curb the country’s soaring inflation levels, which were pegged at 33.69% in April 2024.
