The World Bank has said that the Federal Government of Nigeria’s ambition to achieve single-digit inflation in the short term is unrealistic, warning that Nigeria remains among a handful of African countries still grappling with high Consumer price inflation.
In its latest Africa’s Pulse report released on Tuesday, the Bank projected that Nigeria, alongside Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Sudan, Zambia, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Zimbabwe, would continue to record double-digit inflation rates through 2025.
The report revealed that while 37 of Africa’s 47 economies are projected to maintain single-digit inflation by 2026, Nigeria remains an outlier due to persistent structural challenges, including currency depreciation, high food and energy prices, and supply bottlenecks that continue to fuel price instability.
The development contradicts the projection undermines the Federal Government’s optimism that its recent fiscal and monetary reforms, including the Foreign exchange unification, fuel subsidy removal, and the Central Bank’s tightening measures, would quickly drive inflation down to single digits.
It will be recalled the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had at the Annual Lecture Series at the Lagos Business School in Lagos said that a single-digit inflation rate remained its medium-term target.
But the World Bank in its evaluation noted that despite a broad wave of disinflation sweeping across Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria remains one of the few countries still trapped in double-digit inflation, even as price growth across the region slows to historic lows.
GIK/APA