Nigeria’s inflation rate has reached a new high of 34.19% for June 2024, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This marks a 0.24 percentage point increase from the rate reported in May 2024.
“In June 2024, the headline inflation rate increased to 34.19%, up from 33.95% in May 2024. This represents a rise of 0.24 percentage points,” the NBS stated in its Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which measures the average change over time in the prices of goods and services consumed for day-to-day living, released on Monday.
“On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 11.40 percentage points higher compared to the 22.79% recorded in June 2023.”
According to the NBS, the year-on-year headline inflation rate surged significantly in June 2024 compared to the same month the previous year. On a month-on-month basis, Nigeria’s inflation rate for June 2024 was 2.31%, marking a 0.17% increase from May 2024, which stood at 2.14%.
“This indicates that in June 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level was higher than in May 2024,” the agency explained.
Food Prices Soar
As expected, food inflation in June 2024 increased compared to May 2024.
“On a month-on-month basis, the food inflation rate in June 2024 was 2.55%, showing a 0.26 percentage point increase from the 2.28% recorded in May 2024,” the CPI report indicated.
The NBS attributed this hike to a rise in the average prices of food items such as groundnut oil, palm oil (oil & fats class), water yam, cocoyam, cassava (potatoes, yam & other tubers class), tobacco, catfish, croaker, mudfish, snail (fish class).