CLAIM: Nigeria’s percentage increase in inflation is less than the US, Canada, others 
VERDICT: True
CONTEXT: The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has said that Nigeria is doing better than major countries in the world in terms of the percentage of rise in inflation rate.
Keyamo, while featuring on Politics Today a programme by Channels Television, said Nigeria fared better than the United States of America, Canada, Russia, Spain and others in the way inflation is increasing.
VERIFICATION: In verifying the claim, Daily Trust ascertained that Nigeria’s inflation rate as of January 2020 stood at 12.13%. Inflation rose to 15.75% in December 2020 according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Subsequently, headline inflation rose to 15.63% in December 2021 and is currently at 19.64% in July 2022.
United States of America: As at December 2020, the United States inflation rate was at 1.4%, up from 1.2% in the preceding month of November. Subsequently, a consumer price index, a metric that measures costs across dozens of items, increased by 7% as at December 2021, according to the US Department’s Bureau of Labour Statistics. Currently, the annual inflation rate of the United States reached 9.1% in June, the highest rate in almost 41 years.
Canada: Canada’s consumer price inflation decelerated to an annual rate of 0.7% in December 2020 from 1.0 in November 2020. It later moved to 4.8% at the end of 2021 (December 2021). However, the inflation in Canada as of June 2022 was 8.1%, according to World Bank data.
Germany: In Germany, the annual inflation rate as of December 2020 was 0.51%. The figure later increased to 3.14% at the end of December 2021. As at July 2022, the inflation rate in Germany stood at 7.5%, according to the German apex statistics body.
Spain: According to Statista, as at the end of December 2020, Spain’s inflation rate stood at -0.32%, a 1.02% decline from 2019. The inflation figures further moved to 3.1% at the end of December 2021. However, Consumer prices rose by 10.8% on an annual basis in July, up from 10.2% in June and the fastest rate since September 1984, Spain’s National Statistics Institute (INE) said in a statement. Like most of its European neighbours, Spain is battling an unprecedented surge in inflation as economic fallout from the war in Ukraine and the reopening of economies after the coronavirus lockdowns.
Russia: In Russia, the inflation rate at the end of 2020 stood at 3.38%. It later rose to 6.7% at the end of 2021. The latest figures from the Russian statistics body showed that the inflation rate has now skyrocketed to 15.9% as of July 2022. This may not be unconnected to the current Russia-Ukraine war which has caused devastating damage to different economies around the globe.
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