My Thoughts on Growing Inflation Rate

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           INTRODUCTION

Hello friends of Steem4Bloggers, I am writing about this particular topic because of the current prices of goods in my country. I want to thank the Steem4Bloggers community for the opportunity to air out on this particular trend in the world.

I am from Nigeria and inflation has been striking the country very hard for years now. Last year January was really tough for us when we had issues with printing of New notes. This made the prices of commodities to be very high, that even money was a commodity that was bought.

This directly made the prices of goods to go up very high. When everyone thought the new government will reduce the inflation by May last year, we were struck with another inflation. Instead of things to get better, things are getting even worse.

Is there hope for the common man?
Will inflation ever stop in Nigeria?
How are we going to survive the biting economy?

Let's talk about Inflation.

Inflation is the increase in the price of goods and services over a period of time. This increase in price of goods and services makes money to lose its value or purchasing power.

In Nigeria, the Naira which is the currency of the country has been losing its value at a very high rate. 1000 Naira which is the highest denomination, could cook 10 cups of rice some years back but the same amount can't cook 5 cups of rice and this goes on to show the inflation rate in the country. These are the reasons behind this high inflation rate:

 1. Dependency on Importation

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Nigeria is known to rely heavily on most goods from other countries. Some products like fuel, cassava, rice, Fruits, Stockfish and even palm oil are mostly imported from other countries. This product are bought using other countries currency and not the Naira, thereby placing value on those currencies and this will make the Naira to lose its value. This will in turn cause inflation. When we also export crude oil, we sell using foreign currencies and this even depreciates the Naira more.

2.Increase in the price of Crude Oil

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Nigeria's economy isn't diversified, we concentrate more on crude oil as a source of revenue. Now this makes the country rely heavily on crude oil. A shift in the price of Crude oil means inflation or deflation as the case may be. Last year, fuel subsidy was removed, which saw the price of fuel which is a primary source of energy for most companies, industries, service providers etc...The increase in the price of the fuel is now included into the prices of goods and services, thereby causing inflation.

 3. Printing more Money

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When the supply of money is excessive, and usually more than the demand for goods and services, Inflation occurs...This was always the lectures from my economics teacher in secondary school. Then I couldn't understand what he was trying to explain, but we all saw this last year when more money was printed to balance the high demand for money, I flatiron occur immediately. People started increasing the prices of goods.

These are the major factors that affects inflation in Nigeria.

Everything in Life deals with supply and demand. Everybody in life eats food, uses a particular type of service. No matter the class or field we find ourselves, we will always use a particular goods or service.

Inflation affects every aspect of our lives directly or indirectly. It affects the consumers and even the producers alike. There are still people who benefit from inflation personally but they still get affected by the high cost of goods and services.

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Even with the government, we all have a part to play to make sure that inflation doesn't take centre stage in the country. There are a lot of things the common man can do to help curb inflation and there are:

Increase savings, Reduce Spendings

I wrote about how increased money in circulation can cause inflation. Saving money and spending less will gradually affect the high rate of goods and services. Let's take an example; if the price of a particular commodity is inflated and people don't buy this particular commodity, the producers will be concerned. And try as much as possible to reduce the price of the commodity to favour the common man.

This is one way I know in which the common man can play a part in controlling inflation. It is always left for the Government to bring in policies that will help curb inflation.

The inflation in Nigeria is on the high and the common man is lamenting. We all hope that things get better. The cost of transportation, food and commodities, services etc has skyrocketed and tripled in price every week and our minimum wage is still at a very low value.

Thank you for going through my post, I hope you had a great read.

I invite @davidmarkgeorge, @vudeme123, and @onlyonefave to participate in this contest.