Food inflation, the metric that shows where cheap or expensive food items are bought across the country, surged to 24.82 percent for the fifth straight month in May 2023, up from 24.61 percent in April, according to the latest data on Consumer Price Index from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
While this figure gives the average food inflation rate across the country, there are some states of the federation that have their food inflation rates higher than the national average.
The World Bank warned early June that Nigeria’s food security could deteriorate further due to the Sudan crisis which could spill into countries such as Burkina Faso, Mali, and Nigeria.
“In seven countries (Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen), some affected populations faced Catastrophic/Famine levels of food insecurity (IPC/CH Phase 5), which indicates the threat of famine and extremely critical levels of malnutrition in several areas of the countries, marking the most countries facing such extreme levels of food and nutrition insecurity in the report’s history, which began in 2017,” the World Bank stated in May 2023 Food Security update.
According to the inflation data for May 2023, there are 20 states where the costs of food items are more expensive than the national average of 24.82 percent.
The states that lead the chart where food items are most expensive are Ondo, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos and Bayelsa. Others are Rivers, Edo, Imo, Delta and Ebonyi states.
Food inflation was 30.26 percent in Ondo State, the highest in the federation. Compared to the national food inflation of 24.82 percent, what it means is that an item that cost N2,482 on the average nationwide in May was sold for N3,260 in Ondo State.
In Kogi State, the same item cost N2,983, and N2,952 in Kwara, N2,913 in Lagos; N2,896 in Bayelsa, and N2,833 in Edo.
The states with the lowest food inflation are Zamfara, 22.23 percent; Plateau, 21.36 percent; Kano, 21.33 percent; Taraba, 21.30 percent, and Sokoto, 18.89 percent.
