NIGERIA’S inflation rate rose from 18.6% to 19.64% within a month, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

The Bureau attributed the 17-year all-time high 1.82% jump – the highest in 17 years – to rising food prices and other Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Also listed as contributors were the increased in costs of gas and liquid/solid fuel; hike in road/air transport fares; garments, cleaning, repair and clothing.

But the World Bank blamed the upward swing on government’s lackadaisical attitude to address the trend. A former Director-General at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Dr. Muda Yusuf described the situation as worrisome.

According to Nairalytics, a web portal that publishes Nigeria’s historical macroeconomic data, the last time inflation soared above 19.64% was September, 2005 when it rose to 24.32%.

The latest inflation data is captured in the July CPI Report released yesterday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The Bureau said: “This is 2.27 per cent points higher when compared with the rate recorded in July 2021, which was 17.38 per cent.

“This showed that the headline inflation rate increased in the month of July 2022 when compared to the same month in the previous year of July 2021.

“This means that in the month of July 2022 the general price level was 2.26 per cent higher than in July 2021, NBS said, adding that on a month-on-month basis, the Headline inflation rate in July 2022 was 1.817 per cent, which is 0.001 per cent higher than the 1.816 per cent recorded in June 2022.”

The NBS said the percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve month period ending July 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period, was 16.75 per cent, showing a 0.46 per cent increase compared to 16.30 per cent recorded in July 2021.

According to the report, increases were recorded in all Classifications of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) functions and all-items basis.

It put the urban inflation rate on a year-on-year basis in July at 20.09 per cent (2.08 per cent higher, compared with the 18.01 per cent recorded in July last year).

The report noted that on a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation rate was 1.82 per cent last month, representing 0.0002 per cent decline, compared with the 1.82 per cent recorded in the previous month.

The NBS report reads in part: “The corresponding twelve-month average for the urban inflation rate was 17.29 per cent in July 2022. This was 0.40 per cent higher compared to the 16.89 per cent reported in July 2021. The rural inflation rate in July 2022 was 19.22 per cent on a year-on-year basis; this was 2.47 per cent higher compared to the 16.75 per cent recorded in July 2021. On a month-on-month basis, the rural inflation rate in July 2022 was 1.811 per cent, up by 0.002 per cent compared to June 2022 (1.809 per cent).