By John Ikani
As Nigerians struggle with a scarcity of the redesigned Naira notes, the country’s inflation rate saw a rise in January after a fall in December.
Nigeria’s cash crunch reached unprecedented levels in recent weeks due to the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The crisis has pushed many citizens into hardship and made it incredibly challenging for them to meet their basic daily needs.
In its inflation report Wednesday, the NBS said inflation rose to 21.91% in February compared to 21.82 per cent in January.
The statistics office said the February inflation rate showed an increase of 0.09 per cent points when compared to January’s headline inflation rate.
According to the NBS, increases were recorded in all Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the headline index.
“Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.21 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in February 2022, which was 15.70 per cent.
“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in February 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., February 2022),” the NBS said.
The report noted that the contributions of items on a class basis to the increase in the headline index are bread and cereal (21.67 per cent), actual and imputed rent (7.74 per cent), potatoes, yam and other tubers (6.06 per cent), vegetable (5.44 per cent) and meat (4.78 per cent ).
“On a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All-Items Index in February 2023 was 1.71 per cent, which was 0.16 per cent points lower than the rate recorded in January 2023 (1.87 per cent).
“This means that in February 2023, on average, the general price level was 0.16 per cent lower relative to January 2023.
“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending February 2023 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 19.87 per cent, showing a 3.15 per cent points increase compared to 16.73 per cent recorded in February 2022,” the report said.
