Food Price Volatility and Regional Inequality in Nigeria: Implica-tions for Market Integration and Food Security Policy

Rapid food price inflation and volatility have become a major socioeconomic challenge in Nigeria, with uneven impacts across food commodities and geopolitical regions. However, national food inflation figures often mask substantial heterogeneity in price dynamics, limiting the effectiveness of policy responses. This study investigates the spatio-temporal dynamics of food prices in Nigeria, with the objectives of quantifying short- and long-term inflation patterns, assessing regional price disparities and market integration, and identifying vulnerability-relevant food commodities subject to compounded price pressure. The analysis uses officially reported retail food price data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria, covering 42 major food commodities and prices across six geopolitical zones for April 2024, March 2025, and April 2025. Methodologically, the study combines month-on-month (MoM) and year-on-year (YoY) inflation measures, spatial dis-persion indices, ANOVA and Kruskal–Wallis tests of zonal price differences, multivariate tech-niques (principal component analysis and k-means clustering), and a composite Food Price Pres-sure Index (FPPI). Results show that while MoM inflation was modest on average (mean = 0.10%; SD = 4.63%), YoY inflation was substantial and widespread (mean = 58.45%; SD = 26.43%). Several staples and protein-rich foods experienced exceptionally high YoY inflation, including un-ripe plantain (123.1%), ripe plantain (103.9%), yam tuber (98.2%), and tilapia fresh fish (94.0%). Significant regional price disparities persist, with spatial coefficients of variation exceeding 0.30 for onions and sweet potatoes, indicating incomplete market integration. Multivariate analysis re-veals three distinct commodity regimes—high-volatility protein foods, spatially segmented perish-ables, and high-inflation staples. The FPPI identifies plantain, yam, onions, and fish products as the most vulnerability-relevant commodities, combining high inflation, volatility, and spatial price dispersion. The findings demonstrate that food price pressure in Nigeria is commodity- and region-specific rather than uniform. The study provides data-driven evidence to support targeted food price monitoring, regional market integration, and vulnerability-focused food security policies.