National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, on Wednesday said Nigeria’s inflation rate rose from 33.20 per cent recorded in March, to 33.69 per cent in April 2024.
According to the NBS the increase was driven by food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Food inflation went up to 40.53 percent, compared to an increase of 40.01 percent in March 2024.
On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.47% points higher compared to the rate recorded in April 2023, which was 22.22%.
“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in the month of April 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., April 2023).
“Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in April 2024 was 2.29%, which was 0.73% lower than the rate recorded in March 2024 (3.02%). This means that in the month of April 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is less than the rate of in crease in the average price level in March 2024.”
Prices of food and basic commodities have gone through the roof in the last weeks, as Nigerians continue to battle with high cost of living and one of the country’s toughest economic crises sparked by the current government’s twin policies of petrol subsidy removal and unification of forex windows. The naira, which initially appreciated against the dollar in April, tumbled from about N1,100/$1 to about N1,500/$1.
