According to a report by Picodi.com, an international e-commerce platform, the cost of basic food items required for survival by an average Nigerian family rose by 17.5 percent to N48,130 in January 2023 from N40,980 in the same period of the previous year.
The report states that this amount is 60.4 percent higher than the country’s monthly minimum net wage of N30,000, which means that the wages of those paid the least increased slower than the food prices and the minimum wage is not enough to cover even such a basic basket of products.
The basic food items put in the basket by the report are milk, bread, rice, eggs, cheese, beef, fruits, and vegetables. The report reveals that Nigeria ranked least out of 67 countries in its best basic food price index and that only seven out of 67 countries included in the ranking did not have an increase in the minimum wage compared to January 2022.
Investors King reported that inflation in Nigeria surged to a 17-year high last year due to the fallout of the Russia-Ukraine war. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the country’s inflation rate rose to 21.34 percent in December 2022, the highest in 17 years.
The World Bank’s latest Nigeria Development Update report states that Nigeria’s accelerated inflation growth has eroded the N30,000 minimum wage by 55 percent and has widened the poverty net with an estimated five million people in 2022.
The report also highlights that higher inflation in 2022 is estimated to have pushed an additional five million Nigerians into poverty between January and September 2022, mainly through higher prices of local staples such as rice, bread, yam, and wheat, especially in non-rural areas.
According to Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank’s country director for Nigeria, the country, which has been floating along and riding on the oil price movement, is now at a critical junction.
Chaudhuri says, “Nigeria has a choice to implement critical macroeconomic and structural reforms that can reduce crisis vulnerabilities and increase growth. Doing so will lift per-capita incomes, sustainably reduce poverty and deliver better life outcomes for many Nigerians.”
