Nigerians now pay more for food and other items as general inflation rose from 17.33% in February to 18.17% in March, marking a 1.56% increase in the inflationary rate between the months.
The inflationary pressure was more pronounced with food prices than other goods. The rate of increase in food prices came to 22.95%, higher than the average inflation of all goods of 18.17%. Food price inflation rose by 1.16% between the months, from 21.79% in February to 22.95% in March.
Data shows that Nigeria has one of the highest inflation rates across countries in West Africa. Nigeria records an 18.17% inflation rate in March, which is the highest inflation rate. Ghana recorded a 10.3% inflation rate for the same period. With Ivory Coast recording 3.2% as the inflation rate in March.
Food price increase contributed significantly to the rising inflation rate in March. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that the three items with the highest price index were food-related. The price index measures the present price of a collection of items relative to the price of the same collection of items at a previous period. The inflation rate is gotten by measuring the change in the price index between two periods.
There was an increase in urban inflation by 0.84% in March, while rural inflation increased by 0.83. The inflation rate in urban areas was 18.76%, and it rose to 17.6% in rural areas.
Inflation rates were higher for all items in the urban areas when compared to the rural areas. And also, the price index is higher for each item in urban areas. Food items had a price index of 442.23 and 419.66 for urban and rural areas respectively. The price index for imported food items was 413.32 and 397.6 for urban and rural areas.
Year on year shows that for all items, Kogi State recorded the highest rate of 24.51%. Bauchi State had 22.24% and Sokoto 20.7%. states like Imo, Kwara, and Cross River inflation rose slowly on a yearly basis. Imo State recorded 16.08%, Kwara and Cross River recorded 15.34% and 14.45%, respectively.