A data consulting firm, StatiSense, has said that the rate of food inflation in Nigeria is at its worst under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), when compared to previous administrations.

The firm said this on its Twitter handle, @StatiSense, on Tuesday based on statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics.

A recent report by the NBC showed that the year-on-year, food inflation rate was at 22.95 per cent as of March, which is the highest since October 2005 (almost 15½ years).

The report further detailed the pattern of food inflation since 1999, which showed that food inflation rate in the country had grown by 1,083 per cent in about 22 years.

In a breakdown based on administrations, it revealed that food inflation in the country grew by 94.1 per cent during the Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration of eight years, 47.6 per cent during the Umar Yar’Adua’s administration of three years, 60.3 per cent during the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration of five years, and 142.2 per cent during the current regime.

In response to enquiries from The PUNCH through the Twitter handle, StatiSense gave reasons for the high food inflation rate.

It wrote, “Nigeria is currently experiencing extremely high food inflation rate largely because of insecurity and the poor economic situation in the country.

“Insecurity in the North where most of the agricultural produce from Nigeria come from have prevented farmers from going to the farm.

“When farmers can’t farm at the large scale they usually would, it means harvest will be lean and there will be limited produce which more money will then be required to purchase.”

The firm further suggested measures that could be adopted to tackle the issue of food inflation in country.