By Babajide Komolafe, with agency report Governor,  Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, said that rising global food and energy costs are driving up inflation in Nigeria. Responding to the Inflation rate of 12.8 per cent for March released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday, Sanusi said “Increasing costs of building materials and household items are adding pressure to the inflation rate.” The March inflation rate represents increase of 170 basis points when compared with the 11.1 per cent for February. It would be recalled that the apex bank raised the Monetary Policy Rate to 7.5 per cent last month from 6.5 per cent in anticipation of increased inflation. “We had anticipated, in the light of rising global food and energy prices, that structural pressures would impact on inflation,” said Sanusi. Fuel costs, specifically for kerosene and diesel that are not covered by government subsidy, are particularly “susceptible to rising prices,” he said. In its inflation report for March, the NBS said that,  “The Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is used to measure inflation,  rose by 12.8 per cent year-on-year in March 2011. This is higher than 11.1 percent recorded in the previous month in the new CPI series. The monthly change of the CPI was 1.37 percent increase when compared with February 2011. ” “The urban All Items monthly index rose by 0.7 percent while the corresponding rural index rose by 1.9 per cent when compared with the preceding month. The year-on-year average consumer price level as at March 2011 for Urban and Rural dwellers rose by 8.5 and 16.4 per cent

Foolish PDP.They will never allow the refineries function so that they will keep making their AGO money.

Imagine the amount of money lost daily to these Diesel importers.Because of them,there will never be regular power supply and refineries will never function.

Abagworo, Jonathan will have to deregulate the downstream sector of the oil sector, then the shit will really hit the fan for poor nigerians, we will now know that we should have voted in people who will maintain our refineries.