September 16, (THEWILL) – Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped to 32.15 per cent for the month of August 2024, representing a 1.25% percentage point decrease from the 33.4 per cent recorded in July 2024, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported on Monday.
“In August 2024, the headline inflation rate further eased to 32.15 per cent relative to the July 2024 headline inflation rate of 33.40 per cent,” the statistics bureau said in its Consumer Price Index (CPI) report.
The report highlights a decline in the headline inflation rate from 34.19% in June to 33.40% in July, and further down to 32.15% in August 2024.
However, on a year-on-year basis, the rate remains significantly higher, up by 6.35 percentage points compared to August 2023, which recorded a rate of 25.80%.
On a month-on-month basis, the inflation rate in August 2024 stood at 2.22 per cent, slightly lower than July’s rate of 2.28 per cent, signalling a slower pace in the increase of the average price level compared to the previous month.
Food inflation has also seen notable changes. In August 2024, the food inflation rate stood at 37.52%, which is 8.18 percentage points higher than the 29.34% recorded in August 2023.
On a month-on-month basis, food inflation in August was 2.37%, a decrease of 0.10 percentage points from July 2024’s rate of 2.47%.
The NBS attributed this decline to slower increases in the prices of items such as tobacco, tea, cocoa, coffee, groundnut oil, milk, yam, Irish potatoes, water yam, cassava tuber, palm oil, and vegetable oil.
Regionally, food inflation was highest on a year-on-year basis in Sokoto (46.98%), Gombe (43.25%), and Yobe (43.21%). Conversely, Benue (32.33%), Rivers (33.01%), and Bayelsa (33.36%) experienced the slowest year-on-year increases in food inflation.
On a month-on-month basis, the highest food inflation rates were recorded in Adamawa (5.46%), Kebbi (4.48%), and Borno (3.88%), while Ogun (0.08%), Akwa Ibom (0.45%), and Sokoto (1.00%) saw the slowest rises.
