Nigeria’s headline inflation rate may have dropped to 18.02 percent in September, a three-year low; but to the average Nigerian, the numbers feel like mockery. National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says that inflation is “easing.” Sellers of food, salary earners and artisans say that hunger is “raging.” Both can’t be right.
Let’s be real: Nigeria’s inflation tale is becoming ever more removed from reality. The latest data are coming under the context of a rebased Consumer Price Index, a methodological realignment that revised the measurement basket and base year. Of course, that rebasing created a friendlier number, but nobody requires an economist to tell them that the price of food hasn’t decreased. What has fallen is statistical sensitivity, rather than the cost of living.
The regime boasts of “decline” in inflation. But the real sources of hardship — food, transport, rent, and electricity — continue to rise. The reality is that headline inflation may be falling, but food inflation remains dangerously high.
The average Nigerian family uses over 60 percent of their earnings for food, and prices of staples such as rice, beans, yam, garri, oil etc. doubled or tripled in one year. For those families whose incomes have not kept up, the math no longer works.
The rebasing built a false illusion: that things are improving. In fact, it only shifted the thermometer, not the fever.
Why Nigerians Are Still Hungry
The reasons are evident. Agrarian belt insecurity keeps farmers on the move, driving them out of their lands, leaving vast expanses of land uncultivated. High transport costs, worsened by the deregulation of petrol prices, inflate market costs, among others.
And though the Naira has marginally steadied, imported farm inputs like fertilizer, seed, and machinery remain prohibitively expensive. The result? Lower yields, higher prices, and worsening hunger.
The UN World Food Programme estimates that over 31 million Nigerians are food insecure this year, the largest estimate in West and Central Africa. Not a statistic; an emergency for the country.
18% is used by Nigeria’s economic managers to celebrate as proof that reforms are yielding dividends. But for millions, there is no victory if one skips meals. There is no reform victory when a sack of rice costs more than the minimum monthly pay. When garri becomes beyond the reach of workers, no one should be bragging about inflation rates.
The gap is gaping. Monetary policy has the power to change rates, but not hunger. The latest rate reduction by the Central Bank will help enterprises on paper but not households that can’t even buy breakfast.
Beyond Statistics: The Real Work Ahead
To put food inflation in its place, the government must go beyond presentation and propaganda.
Secure the farms, so farmers can return to the fields without fear.
Fix rural roads and storage facilities to reduce post-harvest loss.
Encourage local production of fertilizers and seeds to reduce dependency on imports.
Enhance social safety nets to cushion the bottom-of-the-barrel households.
Without them, rebasing the inflation numbers will only rebaseline public trust — downwards.
Nigeria’s economic managers should realize that figures do not feed. Headline inflation could be minimized, but hunger has grown more intense; and that is the real gauge of national well-being. Until a consumer can buy more food items with the same naira, neither rebasing nor words will convince Nigerians that things are improving.
A government which is unable to make food affordable has stabilized the suffering, not the economy.
