BREAKING: Nigeria’s inflation exceeds 22% in March

Nigeria’s consumer price index (CPI), which measures inflation rose to 22.04 percent in March 2023, up from 21.91 percent in February.

This is according to the latest CPI report released on Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The March increase comes across as the third consecutive surge in the country’s inflation figure since the year began.

The CPI report from NBS reads, “In March 2023, the headline inflation rate rose to 22.04% compared to February 2023 headline inflation rate which was 21.91%.

“Looking at the trend, the March 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.13% points when compared to February 2023 headline inflation rate. On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 6.13% points higher compared to the rate recorded in March 2022 which was 15.92%,” the report said.

“This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in March 2023 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., March 2022).

“The contributions of items on the divisional level to the increase in the headline index are food & non-alcoholic beverages (11.42%); housing, water, electricity, gas & other fuel (3.69%); clothing & footwear (1.69%); transport (1.43%); furnishings, household equipment & maintenance (1.11%); education (0.87%); health (0.66%); miscellaneous goods & services (0.37%); restaurant & hotels (0.27%); alcoholic beverage, tobacco & kola (0.24%); recreation & culture (0.15%) and communication (0.15%).”