Nigeria’s inflation rate under Buhari rises to 21.9% amid naira scarcity

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report has shown that Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 21.91% in February 2023 from 21.82% recorded in January of the same year.

The NBS report obtained from its website showed that looking at the trend, the February 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.09% points when compared to January 2023 headline inflation rate.  

Similarly, the report stated that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.21% points higher compared to the 15.70% recorded in February 2022, adding that 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 contributions of items on a class basis to the increase in the headline index are presented, thus: Bread and Cereal (21.67%), Actual and Imputed Rent (7.74%), Potatoes, Yam and Other Tubers (6.06%), Vegetable (5.44%) and Meat (4.78%).

“On a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All-Items Index in February 2023 was 1.71%, which was 0.16% points lower than the rate recorded in January 2023 (1.87%). This means that in February 2023, on average, the general price level was 0.16% lower relative to January 2023,” the report added.

This is coming amid Naira scarcity orchestrated by the Naira redesigned policy by the Nigerian government.