Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced that the headline inflation rate for December 2022 eased to 21.34 per cent, down from 21.47 per cent recorded in November 2022.The NBS said in its monthly report of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, that the December 2022 inflation rate showed a decline of 0.13% when compared to November 2022 inflation rate.

It added that on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.72% points higher compared to the rate recorded in December 2021, which was (15.63%).

According to the report, the headline inflation rate increased in the month of December 2022 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., December 2021).

But on a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All Items Index in December 2022 was 1.71%, which was 0.32% higher than the rate recorded in November 2022 (1.39%), indicating that in the month of December 2022, the general price level was 0.32% higher relative to November 2022.

It explained that the percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending December 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 18.85%, showing 1.89% increase compared to the 16.95% recorded in December 2021.

“The increases were recorded in all COICOP divisions that yielded the Headline index most especially in Food & Non-Alcoholic Beverages, Transport and Miscellaneous Goods & Services,” the NBS said.

According to the report, the likely factors responsible to increase in inflation rate in month-on-month can be attributed to the sharp increase in demand usually experience during the festive season, increase in the cost of production e.g. increase in energy cost, transportation cost and exchange rate depreciation.