Nigeria’s headline inflation dropped by 0.87% to 15.60% in January 2022, down from 16.47% recorded about the same time last year.
This is according to a new report released by the National Bureau of Statistics, which relied on the consumer price index or CPI to tally the numbers.
Headline inflation is the inflation figure arrived at using the CPI, which measures how much is used to buy a fixed amount of goods to determine how inflation moved across the country with the previous and current year in view.
“This shows that headline inflation rate slowed down in January when compared to the same month in the previous year,” the Bureau said.
The Headline inflation increased to 1.47% on a month-on-month basis in January 2022. a 0.34% points lower than the 1.82% recorded in December 2021.
The Bureau also said food inflation dropped by 3.44% to 17.13% in January 2022 from 20.57% in January 2021. It said on a month-on-month basis, there was an increase in the food sub-index to 1.62 percent in January 2022,
“On [a] month-on-month basis, the food sub-index increased to 1.62% in January 2022, down by 0.57% points from 2.19 percent recorded in December 2021,” the report said.
It said the rise in the food index was caused by increases in the prices of foods like bread and cereals, Potatoes, yam/other tubers, soft drinks, oils and fats and fruit.
However, the NBS said Core Inflation increased to 13.87% in January 2022 from 11.85% in January 2021 – a 2.02% difference.
Core inflation measures the difference in the cost of goods and services, but it excludes goods and services with volatile prices, such as farm produce and goods from the energy sector.
“On [a] month-on-month basis, the core sub-index increased by 1.25 percent in January 2022. This was down by 0.13 percent when compared with 1.12 percent recorded in December 2021,” it said.
“The highest increases were recorded in prices of electricity, liquid fuel, wine, tobacco, spirit, solid fuels, cleaning, repair and hire of clothing, shoes and other footwear, other services in respect of personal transport equipment, other services n.e.c and pharmaceutical products.”
The NBS added that “The average 12-month annual rate of change of the index was 13.33 percent for the twelve-month period ending January 2022; this is 0.17 percent points higher than 13.16 percent recorded in December 2021.”
The full report can be accessed here.
