Nigeria’s headline inflation declined to 21.34% in December 2022 on a year-on-year basis, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced today. This is 0.12% lower than 21.47% recorded in the month of November 2022. In December 2021, Nigeria’s headline inflation was 15.63%, indicating that the current level of inflation is still higher than what it was a year ago.
“In December 2022, the headline inflation rate eased to 21.34% compared to November 2022 headline inflation rate which was 21.47%. Looking at the trend, December 2022 inflation rate showed a decline of 0.13% when compared to November 2022 inflation rate.
“However, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.72% points higher compared to the rate recorded in December 2021, which was (15.63%). This shows that the headline inflation rate increased in the month of December 2022 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., December 2021),” NBS said.
Food inflation also declined on a year-on-year basis to 23.75% in December 2022 as against 24.13% in November of the same year. Notwithstanding, the current level of food inflation is higher than what it was in December 2021 when food inflation was 17.37%.
In the last two years, inflation has had a devastating effect on the purchasing power of Nigerians. Household consumption was greatly affected which was why the World Bank late in 2022, said Nigeria’s minimum wage of N30,000 had suffered 55% reduction due to the rising inflation in the country. In addition, the global finance development institution said additional five million Nigerians had been moved into poverty on account of weak purchasing power of households.
