The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the prices of some food items in Nigeria increased in September.
This is coming despite the country’s headline inflation slowing in the last sixth months.
Inflation indicators compare prices of goods and services in 12 months. A decline does not necessarily imply a reduction in prices, instead it shows the rate of price increase had fallen compared to previous months.
Headline inflation (all goods and services) reached its lowest rate in six months in September, following a peak in March. Food inflation also slowed but remains high nonetheless.
“The prices of goods and services, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose by 16.63 per cent. This is 0.38 per cent points lower than the rate recorded in August 2021 (17.01) per cent,” NBS had said in September.
In its ‘Selected Food Price Watch’ data for September 2021, published on Tuesday, the bureau said its data showed that the average price of one dozen agric eggs medium size increased year-on-year by 25.84 per cent and month-on-month by 3.31 per cent to N604.99 in September 2021 from N585.64 in August.
It said the average price of an ‘agric’ eggs medium size (the price of one) increased year-on-year by 27.33 per cent and month-on-month by 2.67 per cent to N54.62 in September 2021 from N53.20 in August 2021.
Similarly, the average price of 1kg of local rice increased year-on-year and month-on-month by 4.95 per cent and 0.01 per cent respectively to N410.01 in September 2021 from N409.97 in August 2021.
Also, the average price of 1kg of tomato increased year-on-year by 19.28 per cent and decreased month-on-month by -13.66 per cent to N342.25 in September 2021 from N396.38 in August 2021.
Similarly, it said the average price of 1kg of Garri white, increased year on year by 27.91 per cent and decreased month on month by -6.63 per cent to N301.58 in September 2021 from N323.01 in August 2021.
The NBS said in arriving at the report, fieldwork was done by more than 700 NBS staff in all states of the federation supported by supervisors who were monitored by internal and external observers.
It said the NBS audit team subsequently conducted randomly selected verification of the prices recorded.