Nigerian households are facing serious pressure on their incomes as prices of staples rise across the federation at a time salaries and wages have remained stagnant for a while. The inflationary pressure is biting harder in southern and north central states where a significant number of the staples are most expensive, according to the latest publication of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The March 2022 Selected Food Prices Watch publication of the NBS, Nigeria’s data agency, has shown that Abuja, Nigeria’s administrative capital, and Abia State in south east geopolitical zone have the highest numbers of the most expensive food items in the country. The NBS report tracks 43 essential staples that most households consume regularly, and highlights an upward or downward movement in their prices with emphasis on price changes on a month-on-month, and year-on-year basis. The publication allows individual households to evaluate if their standard of living is better off or worse off a month or a year ago.
To get the items that are the most expensive in the federation and the states they can be found on a monthly basis, NBS compares the prevailing prices of a basket of food items with their average prices nationwide, and with this information, the NBS is able to situate the states with the lowest and highest prices for each item.
According to the latest report, out of the 43 food items tracked by NBS, nine food items were most expensive in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in March 2022, while seven other food items were most expensive in Abia State, in south east geopolitical zone.
The nine food items listed as most expensive in Abuja are the prepacked wheat flour (2kg golden penny), beef (bone in), mudfish (aro) fresh, tilapia fish (epiya), and beef(boneless). Others are frozen chicken, catfish (dried), and plantain (ripe) and unsliced 500g bread.
A 2kg of wheat flour cost N1,041.82 in March 2022 on the average nationwide, and compared with February 2022, it amounted to an increase of 1.97 percent month on month, and 35.99 percent increase year on year when compared with March 2021.
But in Abuja, a 2kg wheat flour cost N1,375 representing a premium of N333.18 on every purchase of the item. The least price of this staple was recoded in Yobe State at N745.19. For households on the same income levels in Abuja and Yobe, a purchase of a 2kg golden penny wheat flour by an Abuja household means their counterpart in Yobe would have additional N629.81 to buy other essential items.
Read also: What NASCO Foods brings to the table
The price of beef (bone in) in Abuja rose by 32.7 percent year on year in March to N1, 902.7, which was the highest compared with N1, 496.47 its average price nationwide. It was cheapest in Tabara at N1, 033.79. Mudfish (aro) fresh was sold for N2, 000.46 in Abuja as against N1,292.46 nationwide. It was cheapest in Adamawa where it was sold for N1,370.91.
“Banditry and insurgency are responsible for the high cost of food items in Abuja. People cannot go to their farms again for fear of being kidnapped. Before now, most people that lived in the outskirt of Abuja were involved in subsistent farming and were able to complement large scale farmers. They no longer do that”, Olawale Sheriff, an Abuja-based resident, said.
Tilapia fish cost N2200.58 in Abuja when compared with its average price of N1161.44; beef(boneless) cost N2600 in Abuja compared with N1955.90 nationwide; frozen chicken cost N3550 in contrast to N2381.19; dried catfish cost N3667,95 as against N2090.01; plantain was sold for N462.01 compared with N302.30 nationwide, and unsliced bread cost N677.5 as its nationwide cost of N411.73 nationwide.
Food items that are sources of protein such as meat, fish and seafood, as well as poultry and poultry products accounted for 12.2 percent of Abuja’s food consumption expenditure in 2019. Expenditure on meat was N27.91 billion, or 4.7 percent of Abuja’s food expenditure, while N23.1 billion and N21.9 billion was spent on fish and seafood, as well as poultry and poultry products, and thus accounted for 3.9 percent and 3.7 percent of Abuja’s food expenditure in 2019, according to NBS. Also, wheat-based products captured under grains and flours, attracted N32.8 billion as food expenditure in 2019, and consequently accounted for 5.5 percent of its food expenditure.
In Abia State, a bottle of vegetable oil cost N1327.54, the highest in the country, compared with an average price of N970.29 while the lowest price was N569.10 in Gombe State. Fresh catfish (Obokun) cost N2121.59, also the highest across the federation, and that compares with nationwide average of N1341.04. Catfish(smoked) was sold for N2479.89; dried fish sardine, N2650.46; mudfish(dried), N3365.99; maize grain(white sold loose), N456.50, and bread unsliced (500g), N650.
Abia residents expended N16.3 billion as the expenditure on oil and fat based products in 2019, representing 3.5 percent of its total food expenditure. Fish and seafood gulped N33.5 billion, and that amounted to 7.1 percent of Abia State’s total food expenditure. With food prices rising, there are reports that households have started to reduce their protein intake.
Rivers State ranks as number three with five food items having the highest prices across the federation. These items are chicken feet, Titus(frozen), rice local(sold loose), rice medium(grained), and rice imported(sold) loose.
On the other hand, Adamawa has the highest number of the least expensive food items in the country. The food items with the least prices in Adamawa State include mudfish(dried), catfish(dried), plantain(unriped), rice medium grained), agric eggs(medium size), chicken wings, mudfish and Titus(frozen).
Bauchi State has seven of the cheapest staples in the country. These include sweet potato, maize grain(white sold loose), beans(brown sold loose), beans9white black eye sold loose), tilapia fish, iced sardine, mackerel(frozen) and beef(boneless).
Across the nation, food expenditure gulped 56.6 percent of the household expenditure in 2019, according to the NBS, translating to N22.78 trillion, while 43.4 percent or N17.43 trillion was devoted to non-food items. As has been established for low income households, the higher the amount allocated to consumption expenditure, the lesser the savings and this will have a negative implication on investment.
Nigeria’s headline inflation rose consistently in the last eleven months from 13.62 percent in January 2021 to 16.98 percent in November 2021, before it started to moderate to 16.54 percent in March 2022. Food inflation was at 19.21 percent in March 2022.
“Inflation has been driven by higher prices of staples, which are especially reducing the purchasing poor and vulnerable Nigerians, constraining any potential poverty reduction. Nigerian authorities have not taken any recent concerted actions to tackle inflationary pressures”, the World Bank said in April.
If another version of the consumption expenditure report were to be released today, the portion of disposable income allocated to consumption would have risen, while the marginal propensity to consume would equally have increased in states that implemented the new minimum wage.
The rising cost of living is happening when many Nigerian households are yet to recover from the impact of Covid 19 pandemic.
The World Bank has predicted that in Nigeria, 95.1 million Nigerians will become poor by end of 2022. This is as a result of Covid 19 driving additional 5 million Nigerians into poverty.
“The impact of the pandemic on poverty could linger. Combining the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and high population growth, the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty (measured using the international poverty line of US$1.90 per day, 2011 PPP) could rise by 10 million between 2019 and 2024, with the absolute number of poor people reaching 89 million by 2024. While these forecasts are slightly rosier than the World Bank fall forecasts, they still paint a sobering picture of Nigeria’s prospects for poverty reduction”, the World Bank added.
