Nigeria’s Inflation Not Looking Good – NBS 2024 Report Shows

Despite being Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released the inflation report for January 2024 on Thursday, showing a 0.98% increase from December 2023.

According to NBS, the headline inflation rate increased to 29.90% relative to the December 2023 inflation rate, which was 28.92%.

Taking a look at the change, the inflation rate for January 2024 increased by 0.98% points from December 2023 to January 2024.

Similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 8.08% points higher, compared to the rate recorded in January 2023, which was 21.82%.

This shows that the headline inflation rate (on a year-on-year basis) increased in January 2024 when compared to the same month in the preceding year.

Furthermore, on a month-on-month basis, the inflation rate in January 2024 was 2.64%, which was 0.35% higher than the rate recorded in December 2023 (2.29%).

Also, this means that in January 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is higher than the rate of increase in the average price level in December 2023.

Meanwhile, food prices were the biggest driver of inflation in the last month, with inflation rising to 35.41% year on year in January 2024 from 33.93% in December. Essentially, the consumer price index of 2024 is a graphical representation of the reality of an average Nigerian.