Nigeria’s headline inflation rate rose for the 17th consecutive month, reaching 33.95% in May 2024, up from 33.69% in April, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. This represents an 11.54 percentage point increase from May 2023, when it was at 22.41%. Urban inflation was particularly high at 36.34% year-on-year and 2.35% month-on-month. Rural inflation was slightly less worrisome standing at 31.82% year-on-year and to 1.94% month-on-month. The West African nation’s food inflation rate was the worst having accelerated to 40.66% year-on-year, up by 15.84 percentage points from the 24.82% recorded in May 2023. It also rose by 2.28% month-on-month. The food inflation rate has a silver lining, however, as its month-on-month growth was 0.22% less than its growth in April, attributable to a slower increase in the prices of staples like palm oil, groundnut oil, yam, Irish potato, and cassava tuber.
SOURCE: BUSINESS INSIDER
