The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has confirmed that Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 33.95 percent in May with prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages continuing to witness price increase.
In April, the inflation rate stood at 33.69 percent.
“Looking at the movement, the May 2024 headline inflation rate showed an increase of 0.26% points when compared to the April 2024 headline inflation rate,” NBS said.
The report also shows that on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in May 2024 was 2.14 percent, which was 0.15 percent lower than the 2.29 percent rate reported in April 2024.
This means that in the month of May, the rate of increase in the average price level is less than the rate of increase in the average price level in April 2024.
An analysis of the top five headline inflation drivers showed food and non-alcoholic beverages led with 17.59 percent.
Following closely are housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels with 5.68 percent while clothing and footwear were at 2.60 percent
Others are transport at 2.21 percent, with furnishings, household equipment and maintenance completing the list at 1.71 percent.
NBS said food inflation rose to 40.66 percent in May, compared to the 24.82 percent reported in the same month last year — indicating an increase of 15.84 percent points.
The bureau said semovita, oatflake, yam flour prepackage, garri, bean, etc (which are under bread and cereals class), Irish potatoes, yam, water yam, etc (under potatoes, yam and other tubers class), contributed to the year-on-year increase in the food inflation rate.
Other contributors are palm oil, vegetable oil, etc (under oil and fat), stockfish, mudfish, crayfish, etc (under fish class), beef head, chicken-live, pork head, and bush meat (under meat class).
