By Adedapo Adesanya

Inflation rate in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, rose to 11.61 percent year-on-year in October 2019, according to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday morning.

The stats office, which released the figures today, said the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures headline inflation, increased by 0.36 percent in the 10th month of this year when compared with the 11.24 percent recorded in the previous month, September 2019.

The October inflation rate is the highest level in 17 months, precisely since May 2018 and this is largely attributed to the closure of land borders by the Nigerian authorities since August 2019, resulting in hike in prices of goods and services since August 2019.

There were expectations that the figure could rise to 11.32 percent, but this revelation by the NSE on Monday beat projections due to surge in prices of food items such as meat, oils and fats, bread and cereals, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish and vegetables.

According to the stats office, the food price index increased to 14.09 percent in October from 13.51 percent in September.

In the report, it was also disclosed that increases were recorded in all Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the Headline Index.

Looking at the month-on-month basis, the headline index increased by 1.07 percent in October 2019 or 0.03 percentage points higher than 1.04 percent recorded in September.

NBS also noted that the percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12 months period ending October 2019 over the average of the CPI for the previous 12 months period was 11.30 percent, showing 0.03 percentage point increase from 11.27 percent recorded in September 2019.

The urban inflation rate stood at 12.20 percent (year-on-year) in October 2019 from 11.78 percent recorded in September 2019, while the rural inflation rate was recorded at 11.07 percent in October 2019 compared to 10.77 percent in September 2019.

On a month-on-month basis, the urban index rose by 1.15 percent in October 2019, up by 0.02 percentage points from 1.13 percent recorded in September 2019, while the rural index rose by 0.99 percent in October 2019, up by 0.03 percentage points from 0.96 percent recorded in the previous month.

In October 2019, all items inflation rate, on year on year basis was highest in Kebbi (15.20 percent), Bauchi (13.97 percent) and Ondo (13.74 percent), while Kwara (9.69 percent), Katsina (9.29 percent) and Bayelsa (9.07 percent) recorded the slowest rise in headline year on year inflation rate.

On month-on-month basis however, October 2019, All items inflation rate was highest in Benue (2.20 percent), Bauchi (1.87 percent) and Cross River (1.80 percent) while on the other hand, Anambra recorded the slowest rise at 0.28 percent, while Bayelsa and Ebonyi saw decline in the headline month on month index by -0.13 percent and -0.35 percent respectively.

https://businesspost.ng/economy/nigerias-inflation-hits-17-month-high-of-11-61/