Nigeria's inflation rate is now 16.82%

The inflation rate in Nigeria is now 16.82% according to the latest CPI report by the country's statistics agency.
The uptick was mainly driven by higher costs of energy and essential food items.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has released Nigeria's latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, which shows inflation rate climbing to 16.82% in April up from 15.92% in March.

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Business Insider Africa understands that the uptick was mainly driven by higher energy and food prices. In specific terms, the prices of essential consumables such as bread, oils, meat, fish, yam, etc., all increased during the month under review; pushing the annual food inflation in the country to 18.4% from 17.2% in March.

It should be noted that this is the highest level Nigeria's inflation rate has climbed to in the past 8 months since August 2021.

The ongoing war in Ukraine is one of the factors that have hindered Nigeria's projected economic recovery post pandemic. The war has disrupted the global energy and food supplies, a development that has gravely impacted the economies of many African countries; especially in the areas of rising consumer prices.

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Despite the surge in inflation rate, monetary policy committee members of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are still expected to retain benchmark interest rate at 11.5% when they meet on May 24. This is because the country's apex bank is focused on encouraging economic recovery/growth, as well as maintaining unemployment rate and per capita income at reasonable levels.

Here are the key takeaways from Nigeria's latest CPI

Consumer prices jumped 1.76% to 16.82%.
Urban inflation rate increased to 17.35%.
Food inflation rose to 18.37% in April, up from 17.2% in March.
Core inflation rate rose to 14.18% in April 2022, as against 13.91% in March 2022.