Nigeria has witnessed a surge in its inflation rate, which rose to 25.80 percent in August, up from the 24.08 percent recorded in July, marking the eighth consecutive month of inflation increase and the highest rate in 18 years.

The National Bureau of Statistics released this information on Friday in its latest Consumer Price Index Report for August 2023.

This significant jump in August’s headline inflation represents a 1.72 percent increase compared to the previous month.
The main reasons for this increase are higher prices for food, housing, and other basic needs. Food prices, in particular, have increased a lot, making it more expensive for people to buy groceries.

According to the NBS report, food and non-alcoholic beverages contributed the most (13.36 percent) to the rise in the headline index, followed by housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuel (4.32 percent), clothing and footwear (1.97 percent), transport (1.68 percent), furnishings and household equipment and maintenance (1.30 percent), and education (1.02 percent).

The report further revealed increases in health (0.78 percent), miscellaneous goods and services (0.43 percent), restaurants and hotels (0.31 percent), alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and kola (0.28 percent), recreation and culture (0.18 percent), and communication (0.18 percent).

Food inflation, constituting 50 percent of the overall inflation rate, surged to 29.34 percent in August, up from 26.98 percent the previous month. Additionally, food inflation was 6.22 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in August of the previous year (23.12 percent).

“The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of oil and fat, bread and cereals, fish, fruit, meat, vegetables and potatoes, yam and other tubers, milk, cheese, and eggs,” stated the NBS.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce and energy, stood at 21.15 percent in August 2023, marking a 4.03 percent increase compared to the 17.12 percent recorded in August 2022.