The two-term Governor of Lagos State and former Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, SAN has maintained that the plan of Nigerian government will always fail and things will continue to go wrong if its plans and projections are based on the 2006 Nigeria's census.

Fashola said this while discussing the contents of his debut published work, Nigerian Public Discourse. He maintained in his explanation of the book's content that the Nigeria’s 2006 census was not properly done, noting that census does not end in the head count but includes a review and a challenge process.

This according to him made him contest the 9 million plus population figure ascribed to Lagos state when the commission actually enumerated 4.5 million houses in the state. Fashola questions the figure on the basis that each house could not have had just husband and wife when according to him, “the common logic is that each household will have at least three to four people in each house.”
According to him, he headed to the census tribunal to contest the figure and the tribunal validated the challenge of the result.

It was in the course of this that it was discovered that about 11 local governments in the state were robbed. He then added that if Lagos (population census) was wrong, then, the whole Nigeria (population) could be wrong, and if this is so, the 200 million Nigeria Population figure is wrong.

He further explained that since population figure is the basis for government’s plan and projections, then, there will always be wrong results in such plans in Nigeria.

While explaining further on other subject matters explored in the book, Fashola said the book talks about the kind of system of government practiced in Nigeria, the genuine number of out-of-school-children, the expectations from the President as well as the constitutional and statutory functions of the Vice President.

In the course of his explanation, he also campaigned for house rental projects instead of ownership to solve housing problems, then, made case for monthly house rental.

He however concluded that he has not set out to criticize the issues raised in the book, but stir people’s consciousness up to start to ponder on them and start to ask questions.