National Telescope national telescope newspaper
By: Ekpenyong Emmanuel
Nigeria’s inflation rate has risen to 34.80% in December 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
This represents a marginal increase of 0.20% compared to the 34.60% recorded in November 2024. The NBS attributed the rise to the December festive period increases in demand for goods and services.
Breaking down the numbers, the Urban inflation rate was 37.29% on a year-on-year basis in December 2024, showing 6.30 percentage points higher compared to the 31.00% recorded in December 2023.
The rural inflation rate, on the other hand, was 32.47% on a year-on-year basis in December 2024, representing a 5.37% increase compared to the 27.10% recorded in December 2023.
The Food inflation rate in December 2024 was 39.84% on a year-on-year basis, showing 5.91 percentage points higher compared to the 33.93% recorded in December 2023.
The NBS reported that the rise in food inflation was caused by increases in prices of items such as yam, water yam, sweet potatoes, beer, and dried fish.
The average annual rate of Food inflation for the twelve months ending December 2024 was 39.12%, which was 11.16% points higher compared with the 27.96% average annual rate of change recorded in December 2023.
The states with the highest inflation rates in December 2024 were Bauchi (44.06%), Sokoto (42.43%), and Kebbi (41.47%), while Katsina (28.33%), Delta (29.23%), and Imo (29.99%) recorded the lowest rise in Headline inflation.
