By Tony Obiechina, Abuja

Nigeria’s inflation rate surprisingly eased to 21.34% in December 2022 despite the Christmas and New year festivities, dropping from 21.47% recorded in November.

This was contained in the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in Abuja on Monday.

This is the first time Nigeria’s headline inflation rate dropped on a month-on-month basis in the last eleven months, which showed a decline of 0.13% between November and December.

Compared to November 2022, the rate dropped by 0.12% points, representing a 5.72% points increase compared to 15.63% recorded in the corresponding period of last year.

Food inflation, a closely watched indices, fell to 23.75% in December 2022 from 24.13% recorded in the previous month.

On the other hand, the “All items less farm produce’’ index or Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce, stood at 18.49% in December 2022. This is 24.8 basis points higher when compared to the 18.24% recorded in November 2022.

“In December 2022, the headline inflation rate eased to 21.34% compared to November 2022 headline inflation rate which was 21.47%,” the NBS report partly read.

“Looking at the trend, December 2022 inflation rate showed a decline of 0.13% when compared to November 2022 inflation rate.

“However, on a year-on-year basis, the headline inflation rate was 5.72% points higher compared to the rate recorded in December 2021, which was (15.63%). This shows that the headline inflation rate increased in the month of December 2022 when compared to the same month in the preceding year (i.e., December 2021).

“On a month-on-month basis, the percentage change in the All Items Index in December 2022 was 1.71%, which was 0.32% higher than the rate recorded in November 2022 (1.39%). This means that in the month of December 2022, the general price level was 0.32% higher relative to November 2022.

“The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending December 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous twelve months period was 18.85%, showing 1.89% increase compared to the 16.95% recorded in December 2021.”