Femi Adesina, a spokesperson for President Muhammadu Buhari, admitted that Nigeria’s inflation is “bad enough” though it is an issue globally.

“Look at what inflation is doing around the world now. Next door neighbour, Ghana, the last I saw their inflation was 58 per cent,” Mr Adesina said. “Nigeria’s hit just about 22 per cent. I wouldn’t say about it because that is bad enough. But Ghana has 58.”

Mr Adesina, in an interview with Channels TV on Thursday morning, said “other countries are higher. United Kingdom has not had the level of inflation it has had in the past 40 years. It’s all over the world so no country of the world is where it wants to be.”

Mr Adesina’s admittance comes as Mr Buhari’s eight-year regime winds down. Mr Buhari will leave office on May 29.

Nigeria’s inflation rate rose to 22.04 per cent in March 2023, from the 21.91 per cent recorded in February 2023, according to the Consumer Price Index published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Saturday.

The NBS statistics also showed that the rate of food inflation in March increased to 2.07 per cent, 0.16 per cent more than the 1.90 per cent reported in February.

With the implementation of planned subsidy removal later in the year, inflation could rise further eroding purchasing power of many Nigerians.