The Naira on Friday, June 16, closed at N663 to the dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window.

This has been considered a big gain as the Naira closed at N702 to a dollar on Thursday, June 15.

The CBN has already ditched its previous official rate of N463 to a dollar. N589/$ is now being quoted on the apex bank’s website.

Tinubu Govt Suffers Huge Setback As Inflation Rate Rises To 22.41%

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 22.41 percent in May 2023, up from 22.22 percent in the previous month.

The NBS made the country’s May inflation known in the latest CPI report released on Thursday in Abua.

Naija News reports that the CPI measures the rate of change in prices of goods and services (inflation) in the country.

The NBS said: “Looking at the movement, the May 2023 inflation rate showed an increase of 0.19 percent points when compared to April 2023 headline inflation rate.”

It said similarly, on a year-on-year basis, the inflation rate was 4.70 percent points higher compared to the rate recorded in May 2022, which was (17.71 percent).

A breakdown of the NBS report show that food & non-alcoholic beverages contributed most to the acceleration in the headline inflation with (11.61 percent) followed by housing water, electricity gas & other fuel (3.75 percent), clothing & footwear (1.71 percent) and transport (1.46 percent).

Others are furnishings & household equipment & maintenance (1.13 percent), education, (0.88 percent), health (0.67 percent), miscellaneous goods & services (0.37 percent), restaurant & hotels (0.27 percent), alcoholic beverage, tobacco & kola (0.24 percent), recreation & culture (0.15 percent) and communication (0.15 percent).

The report also revealed that food inflation, which constitutes 50 percent of the inflation rate, rose to 24.82 percent in May from 24.61 percent in the previous month. The food inflation rate was also 5.33 percentage points higher compared to the rate recorded in May last year (19.50 percent).

The report said: “The rise in the food inflation on a year-on-year basis was caused by increases in prices of oil and fat, yam and other tubers, bread and cereals, fish, potatoes, fruits, meat, vegetable and spirit.