The mad price of cashew nuts is not the whole story of Nigeria's cost-of-living crisis. Prices are rising at their fastest rate ever in 30 years. The cost of staple foods like potatoes, beans, garri, maize and millet are all spiralling.

I was going through some old files in my closet the other day when I saw some documents and receipts that absolutely cracked me up. Among the browning, time-worn papers was the receipt from a private primary school for the payment of my first daughter's fees.

It was a middle-class school that charged N5,000 ($228 at 1995 exchange rates, $3.28 today) per term. Attached to the fading receipt was a thank you note by the bursar. I rocked with laughter. This was in 1995 when, after nearly seven years of working, my monthly salary was around N60,000 or so. I will not forget how my mother reacted when she found out how much I was paying for her granddaughter's termly fees. "Did your university tuition cost that much?" she asked despairingly.

Of course, it did, but not by a lot. As I held that rusty receipt in my hand on that day, the shock and despair in my mother's face about how prices had gone up and how things had changed, for the worse, flooded my mind.

Yet, within three decades of my mother showing concern, the joke was on me. But this time, it was no longer a laughing...