By Okeoghene Akubuike
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the most prevalent shock affecting households across Nigeria is the price increases on major food items.
The NBS said 71 per cent of households reported this shock
The NBS disclosed this in its General Household Survey-Panel (GHS-Panel) Wave 5 2023/2024, unveiled in Abuja.
The report said urban households experienced the shock of food price increases at 75.5 percent more than rural households at 68.9 percent.
It said the issue was most pronounced in the South-East and South-South zones at 83.6 percent and 79.3 percent, respectively.
“In general, the data indicate that price hikes on essential goods are a major concern for households nationwide.”
The report revealed the other top most common economic shocks were an increase in the price of oil and fuel at 52 percent and an increase in the price of other fuels at 32.2 percent.
“This was followed by an increase in the price of farming and business inputs at 28.8 percent, floods at 8.8 percent, droughts at 5.8 percent, and pest and plant disease at 5.7 percent.
“Shortage/scarcity of petrol at 5.3 percent, irregular rains at 4.7 percent, and very high temperatures (>40°C) at 4.7 percent.”
It said these households dealt with shocks in a variety of ways, but the main coping mechanism was reducing food consumption by 48.8 percent.
“To cushion shock effects, some households also received assistance from friends and family at 36.1 percent and reduced purchased quantities compared to the last at 32.6 percent.
“In contrast, a significant proportion of households did nothing to deal with the shocks at 28.3 percent.”
The report revealed that only 4.0 percent of households nationwide received safety-net assistance, a decline compared to GHS-Panel Wave 4 at 10.4 percent.
The report showed that households in the urban areas had a higher coverage of receiving assistance at 5.2 percent compared to rural areas, which have a coverage of 3.5 percent.
“Also households in the urban areas had a stronger reliance on cash assistance at 60.5 percent compared to the rural areas at 49.6 percent.”
The report said at the zonal level, the South-South and North-West zones recorded the highest share of households with safety nets at 6.7 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the GHS-Panel is Nigeria’s nationally representative longitudinal household survey, which commenced in 2010, and the NBS has implemented five waves of the survey.
The panel nature of the data enables tracking household-level changes in critical areas of welfare, work, and socio-economic outcomes over time, yielding insights for policy.