Nigerian Inflation Jumps to 14.9% in November on Food Pressure

By Bashir Olanrewaju

Nigeria’s annual inflation jumped for the 15th consecutive month to reach 14.9 percent as food costs continued to exert pressure on prices.

It was a sharp rise from 14.2 percent in October, with food  inflation reaching 18.3 percent from 17.4 percent in October, according data released on Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

“On month-on-month basis, the food sub-index increased by 2.04 percent in November 2020,” the statistics agency said in a statement on its website.

Prices in Nigeria have faced a twin problem of naira depreciation due to low foreign receipts and rising food shortages caused by insecurity in the country’s main food growing regions.

Though the Central Bank of Nigeria set a target band of between 6 to 9 percent in its inflation management,  actual rate have stayed outside this band for the past six years.