As Nigeria continues to battle with inflation, the increasing inflation in the country is the highest since 2009, a SaharaReporters’ review of inflation data from the National Bureau of Statistics has shown.
This development is despite claims by Bayo Onanuga, a spokesperson to the President Bola Tinubu, that inflation is slowing down.
Onanuga had stated this in his response to an article published in the New York Times.
Meanwhile, a review of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data, showed that in May 2009, the headline inflation stood at 13.2%, in the subsequent one year period of May 2010, it reduced to 12.9%, 12.4% in May 2011, 12.7% in May 2012, 9.0% in May 2013, 8.0% in May 2014, 9.0% in May 2015.
It jumped to 15.6% in May 2016, 16.25% in May 2017, 11.61% in May 2018, 11.40% in May 2019, 12.40% in May 2020 and 17.93% in May 2021.
The inflation figure for May 2022 stood at 17.71%, 22.41% in May 2023 and then jumping to a record 33.95% in May 2024.
Already, food inflation as of May 2024, stood at 40%, a situation that has seen food inflation nearing hyperinflation.
Already, the Global Hunger Index as of 2023 notes that Nigeria has a severe hunger problem. This was at a time when in May 2023, inflation stood at 22.41%.
In 2023, UNICEF noted that 25million Nigerians were at the risk of food insecurity.
The country’s official data hub, National Bureau of Statistics earlier noted that 133 million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor.
A SaharaReporters’ report had earlier noted that inflation had worsened the value of money in Nigeria, stating that the minimum wage of N30,000 could have bought more in 2019 than the N60,000 then offered by the government.
Nigerians have lamented the rising cost of food items, stating that survival has been hard.
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