Nigeria’s inflation rate hits 31.70%

In February 2024, Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose to 31.70%, up from 29.90% in January 2024, marking an increase of 1.80%.

Comparatively, on an annual basis, February 2024’s inflation rate was 9.79% higher than the 21.91% recorded in February 2023.

Additionally, the month-on-month headline inflation rate in February 2024 reached 3.12%, an increase of 0.48% from January 2024’s rate of 2.64%.

This indicates that the pace at which average prices rose in February 2024 exceeded the rate of price increase in January 2024.

Food inflation climbed to 37.92% on the back of higher average prices of items like bread and cereals, potatoes, yams and other tubers, fish, coffee, tea, and cocoa.

This represented a 13.57% increase from the 24.35% food inflation rate recorded in February 2023.

In the month-to-month analysis, February 2024’s food inflation rate was 3.79%, showing a 0.58% rise from January 2024’s rate of 3.21%.

The increase in month-to-month food inflation was driven by the accelerated price growth of bread and cereals, potatoes, yams and other tubers, fish, coffee, tea, and cocoa.

Core inflation, which omits the costs of volatile agricultural products and energy, was 25.13% in February 2024, showing a 6.76% increase from the 18.37% noted in February 2023.

Notable price rises were seen in passenger road transport, housing rentals (actual and imputed), medical services, and pharmaceutical products.

Month-on-month, the core inflation rate decreased slightly to 2.17% in February 2024 from 2.24% in January 2024, a drop of 0.07%.

The average annual inflation rate over the previous twelve months reached 21.72% as of February 2024, which is 4.97 percentage points higher than the 16.75% seen in February 2023.