Inflation quickened in November, the first uptick in four months, mainly on higher food prices, the statistics office said.
Inflation was 7.9 percent last month, up from 7.8 percent in October, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said in an e-mailed statement late yesterday.
“Prices increased in major food classes such as meat, fish, as well as bread and cereals,” the NBS said, without explaining the rise.
The October figure was the lowest in more than five years in Africa’s top oil producer and its most populous nation.
Inflation this year has stayed within the Central Bank of Nigeria’s target of less than 10 percent.
The bank has maintained the benchmark interest rate at 12 percent since October 2011 to help stabilize the naira and keep inflation under control. Price pressures may increase as the nation prepares for elections in 2015, Governor Lamido Sanusi said at the Monetary Policy Committee’s most recent meeting on Nov. 19.
[Bloomberg]