Chinwendu Obienyi
Nigeria’s headline inflation may rise to 15.89 per cent in December if its borders remain shut through 2020 with the proposed electricity price hike implemented next month.
This was the view of market analysts in their Consumer Price Index (CPI) report following the release of the CPI/Inflation report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) last week.
The NBS revealed that inflation increased to 12.20 per cent in February, an increase of 0.07 percentage points from the 12.13 per cent recorded in January, noting that on a month-on-month basis, the headline index increased by 0.79 per cent in February 2020.
The report said, “this is 0.08 per cent rate lower than the rate recorded in January 2020 (0.87 per cent). The nation’s urban inflation rate increased by 12.85 per cent (year-on-year) in February 2020 from 12.78 per cent recorded in January 2020, while the rural inflation rate increased by 11.61 per cent in February 2020 from 11.54 per cent in January 2020.