On Thursday, the National Bureau of Statistics released the Consumer Price Index for March 2021 and it is Nigeria’s highest inflation rate since January 2017.
According to the NBS, the inflation rate or CPI which measures the increases in prices of goods and services, for March 2021 was 18.17%, a significant increase of 0.84% from 17.33% recorded in February 2021.
The CPI for March is the highest since 18.72% inflation rate was recorded more than four years ago.
Food inflation also rose massively by more than 1% to 22.95% from 21.79% in February. Core inflation for March rose to 12.67% from 12.38% in the previous month.
There were increases in the prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, tobacco and kola while the prices of services also soared in the month under review.
The NBS reported “… the consumer price index, (CPI) which measures inflation increased by 18.17 percent (year-on-year) in March 2021. This is 0.82 percent points higher than the rate recorded in February 2021 (17.33 percent).
Increases were recorded in all COICOP divisions that yielded the Headline index.
“… On a month-on-month basis, the Headline index increased by 1.56 percent in March 2021. This is 0.02 percentage points higher than the rate recorded in February 2021 (1.54 percent).
The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the twelve months period ending March 2021, over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 14.55 percent, representing a 0.50 percent point increase over 14.05 percent recorded in February 2021.”
The rise in food index was caused by increases in prices of Bread and cereals, Potatoes, yam and other tubers, Meat, Vegetable, Fish, Oils and fats and fruits.
“… On a month-on-month basis, the food sub-index increased by 1.90 percent in March 2021, up by 0.01 percent points from 1.89 percent recorded in February 2021.”
Headline inflation on a month-on-month basis was highest in Rivers, Gombe and Niger States while Zamfara, Yobe, and Kebbi had the slowest rise. Rivers, Ogun and Ebonyi also had the highest rise in food inflation on a month-on-month basis.