This soaring inflation

AMIDST widespread insecurity and the despair of vast populations of Nigerians, reports that food insecurity has deepened across the country, with bread and fish stoking inflation to an 18-year high, cannot but be depressing. Per data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s inflation rate has continued to soar, reaching a new high of 27.33 percent in October, up from 26.72 percent in September. This marks a 0.61 percent increase in the headline inflation rate, the highest the country has seen in nearly two decades. That is not all: the year-on-year increase is even more significant, with the current rate being 6.24 percent higher than in October 2022.

The fact is well known that forex sales to authorised dealers by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have declined in recent months, leading to dollar scarcity and naira depreciation across forex markets. The bank has repeatedly said that it plans to intervene in the country’s foreign exchange market occasionally to boost liquidity, and has recently ended an eight-year ban on 43 items that had been restricted from accessing forex on the official market. Nigeria continues to battle chronic dollar shortages on the official market, where trading volumes have steadily declined, causing the naira to slump to record lows against the dollar.

According to analysts, the rise in inflation has its roots in the poor status of the naira, rising food prices, and forex shortages. The inflation rise in October is the 10th consecutive rise in inflation rate this year. Food inflation rate surged to a staggering 31.52 percent compared to the previous year, a significant leap of 7.80 percent points, apparently in response to the Bola Tinubu administration’s removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit on May 29 without any plans outlined to cushion the debilitating effects on the citizenry. Rather than rolling out a decent minimum wage, the government has been content with giving “wage awards” to federal workers, apparently to douse discontent.

To say the very least, we have seen no evidence of government concern about the dastardly state of affairs and among other ugly spectacles, the protests by fish sellers in Ogun, Oyo and other states over the near impossibility of doing business is an indictment on a government given to rhetoric in the marked absence of tangible economic and survival results. The government keeps making promises while people literally starve. Surely, the  increasing rate of inflation in the country, particularly with respect to food prices, is one undeniable signal of the deteriorating condition of living of Nigerians. How do people live and survive with such unbearable increase in the cost of food items? What are Nigerians to do in the light of the present descent into poverty of many in the face of hunger attendant on inability to afford the high prices of staple food items?

At the risk of sounding repetitive, we do not see evidence of government at all levels recognising the negative effects of soaring inflation on the living conditions of the people and providing a remedy through policies and programmes designed to bring food prices down. It ought to be clear that adding paltry sums of money to the salaries of workers in the name of palliatives cannot address the increasingly debilitating effects of rising food prices. What is needed, which would positively affect not just workers but all Nigerians, are purposive efforts to bring the prices of food items down. That, apparently, will include containing terror attacks on farmers.

We hope that the government will act fast and stop the slide into a hunger epidemic in the country.

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