Food inflation still Nigeria’s biggest worry as headline inflation eases slightly
CPPE warned that rising food prices remain the biggest challenge to Nigeria’s inflation outlook despite headline inflation easing marginally to 15.91% in June, down from 15.93% in May, while food inflation rose to 17.52% year-on-year and month-on-month food inflation climbed sharply to 3.75%, driven by higher prices of tomatoes, fresh pepper, beef, garri, yam products, cassava flour, cowpea and Irish potatoes, according to NBS data released a day earlier. The organisation said food inflation directly affects household purchasing power and deepens poverty, with urban inflation at 16.08% exceeding the national rate, worsened by rural-to-urban migration due to insecurity. CPPE argued that Nigeria’s inflation is increasingly structural, citing insecurity in farming communities, high transportation and logistics costs, rising energy prices, expensive fertilisers, supply chain disruptions and imported inflation linked to global geopolitical tensions as key drivers that monetary policy alone cannot resolve. It urged monetary and fiscal authorities to collaborate on structural reforms—expanding food production, improving security, irrigation, mechanisation, technology adoption, affordable credit, reducing post-harvest losses, lowering transport costs across agricultural value chains, sustaining exchange rate stability and deepening domestic petroleum refining—and said the latest figures do not justify another interest rate hike by the CBN’s MPC. Given persistent food price pressure, will you adjust your food budget, seek cheaper alternatives, or support community farming initiatives to cope?