Escalating Food Prices Squeeze Budget With 40% Inflation Surge
Against the backdrop of ongoing increases in prices of essential food items in the market, Nigeria has experienced an unparalleled food inflation rate of 40 percent in March 2024.
Economists and financial analysts elucidated that this occurrence would heighten the strain on the purchasing ability of the typical Nigerian, and they also forecast that this pattern would persist for several months before reaching stability.
The food inflation drove the headline inflation rate to 33.2 percent, up from 31.7 percent recorded in the month of February.
The figures released yesterday by National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, in its Consumer Price Index, CPI, report for March 2024, represented a 2.09 and 1.5 percentage points increases month-on-month.
But the analysts see a wider headline inflationary rise in this month to 34.6 percent, representing a 2.4 percentage month-on-month rise resulting from the recent hike in electricity tariff.
