225,722

That's where Nigeria's stock market All-Share Index closed last week. An all-time high.

The year-to-date return is 45 percent. Here's what that means in terms that land. If you had N1 million in the NGX at the start of January, you have roughly N1.45 million today. In four months. The market has added N45.6 trillion in value since the year began.

That figure is real. It is also doing work that it shouldn't be allowed to do alone.

When reformers talk about Nigeria's economy stabilising, this number is often part of what they mean. Inflation is easing. The exchange rate is holding. The stock market is at a record. These things are true.

What the number hides is who the record serves. The NGX rally is driven by institutional money. Pension funds repositioning. Large-cap stocks with foreign investor interest. Companies whose profits have surged because the same exchange rate reforms that made imports more expensive also made their dollar earnings worth more naira.

The person sending N150,000 home to their mother in Ibadan every month isn't in this number. The civil servant waiting on a promotion that the budget can't fund isn't in this number. The teacher in Kano whose school hasn't seen a new textbook in three years isn't in this number.

Nigeria's stock market is working. That's not nothing. But 225,722 is a number that describes one room in a very large house, and most Nigerians aren't in that room.