By Tony Tagbo, Abuja 

Nigerian inflation figures for August 2022 have risen to 20.52 per cent, according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday.

The figures are higher by 3.52 per cent when compared to the rate recorded in August 2021 at 17.01 per cent.

NBS blamed the surge in inflation on yearly basis on the “Disruption in the supply of food products; increase in import cost due to the persistent currency depreciation and general increase in the cost of production.”

It said inflation rose higher in August compared to July because of “Decline in current month food index relative to the reference month index which is due to harvest season and Relative stability in transportation cost due to availability of fuel.”

The soaring prices in August is also a setback to the Central Bank of Nigeria efforts to combat inflation.

In July, the CBN increased its benchmark interest rate to 14 per cent with the hopes of containing inflation.

In the report, NBS said that the food inflation rate in August 2022 was 23.12 per cent on a year-on-year basis; which was 2.82 per cent higher compared to the 20.30 per cent recorded in August 2021.

It was also higher than the 22.02 per cent food inflation recorded in July 2022.

The rise was attributed to “increases in prices of bread and cereals, food product, potatoes, yam and other tuber, fish, meat, oil and fat.”

NBS said, “Inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Ebonyi (25.33 per cent), Rivers (23.70 per cent), Bayelsa (23.01 per cent), while Jigawa (17.30 per cent), Borno (17.56 per cent) and Zamfara (18.04 per cent) recorded the slowest rise in headline Year-on-Year inflation.

“On a month-on-month basis, however, August 2022 recorded the highest increases in Anambra (2.78 per cent), Ondo (2.53 per cent), Nasarawa (2.40 per cent), while Yobe (0.68 per cent), Borno (0.84 per cent) and Zamfara (0.98 per cent) recorded the slowest rise on month-on-month inflation.”