Nigeria’s Inflation Jumps to 34.80% in December 2024

This was disclosed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its first published data after almost a month of blackout on its website following a purported hack.

The December 2024 headline inflation rate showed a marginal increase of 0.20 per cent compared to the November 2024 headline inflation rate.

This was due to December festive period increases in demand for goods and services.

On a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.87 per cent higher than the rate recorded in December 2023 (28.92 per cent). This shows that the headline inflation rate (year-on-year basis) increased in December 2024 compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., December 2023).

On the contrary, the month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate in December 2024 was 2.44 per cent, which was 0.20 per cent lower than the rate recorded in November 2024 at 2.64 per cent.

This means that in December 2024, the rate of increase in the average price level is slightly lower than the rate of increase in the average price level in November 2024.

Meanwhile, the food inflation rate in the festive month was 39.84 per cent on a year-on-year basis, 5.91 per cent points higher compared to the rate recorded in December 2023 at 33.93 per cent.

The rise in food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of the following items; yam, water yam, sweet potatoes, etc (potatoes, yam & other tubers class), beer, pinto (tobacco class), guinea corn, maize grains, rice, etc (bread and cereals class), and dried fish-sadine, catfish dried, etc (fish class).

On a month-on-month basis, the Food inflation rate in December 2024 was 2.66 per cent which shows a 0.32 per cent decrease compared to the rate recorded in November 2024 at 2.98 per cent.

The decline can be attributed to the rate of decrease in the average prices of local beer (burukutu), pinto (tobacco Class), fruit juice in tin, malt drinks, etc (soft drinks class), rice, millet, maize flour, etc (bread and cereals class) and water yam, irish potatoes, coco yam, etc (potatoes, yam & other tubers class).