Emmanuel Onwubiko
STEPHEN Hawking’s epochal book titled ‘Brief Answers to the big questions,” which was published sometimes last year post-humously, remains one of the finest works of scholarship in the twenty first century. Daily Telegraph describes the book as follows: “A beautiful little book by a brilliant mind”. The Guardian of Great Britain says of the book thus: “A rare genius”.
Pope Francis the Pontiff of the Catholic Church Worldwide with well over 2 billion memberships has very beautiful words for Stephen Hawking who reportedly died an atheist. Against these backdrops of these adorable things said about the man and his books, anyone who desires cogent and verifiable answers to the twists and turns of the cosmology and the times spent on Earth by humanity will invariably turn to all of his books to quench the thirst going by the fact that his works represent a veritable fountain of knowledge.
What also marks him out from others is his simplicity of writing style to an extent that he presents science to appear so simple to the scientifically unlearned minds.
This was precisely the motivating factor that compelled me to go looking for it last month when I went on vacation to the United Kingdom. Actually, my search for this book took off from Abuja in the early part of the year when I was made aware of its publication through a piece published in one of the British tabloids.
In this book, the foremost British physicist and academic professor and a reputable cosmologist answered some fundamental questions around the issues of the existence of humanity vis-à-vis the cosmology. A fascinating aspect of the question remains his interrogatory on “will we survive on Earth?”
This question posed by Professor Stephen Hawking of the blessed memory is the foundation upon which I have set out to provide brief answer to a big question about us in the geo-political entity known as Nigeria and particularly to attempt to briefly answer whether we can survive in Nigeria in the midst of the terrible security challenges.
Peeping briefly at the chapter of this phenomenal book by this British and indeed world’s renowned physicist, in which he answered the question whether we can survive on the planet earth, tells me that his question arose from the potency of the advances in the sciences of weapons’ development with specific reference to the nuclear weapons.
He was of the view that with the sophisticated nature of nuclear weapons in the armaments built by certain nations, if such nation’s by accident of politics elects a president who is careless, the end of the world would be near. He specifically expressed anxiety about the election of President Donald Trump and affirmed his skepticism that should Trump not moderate his unpredictability and rule like a statesman with a global outlook then the end of the World may be near.
Hear him: “It is without doubt the case that our world is more politically unstable than at any time in my memory. Large numbers of people feel left behind both economically and socially. As a result, they are turning to populist – or at least popular – politicians who have limited experience of government and whose ability to take calm decisions in a crisis has yet to be tested. So that would imply that a Doomsday Clock should be moved closer to a critical point, as the prospect of careless or malicious forces precipitating Armageddon grows.”
Hawking stated that: “The Earth is under threat from so many areas that it is difficult for me to be positive. The threats are too big and numerous.” His words: “First, the Earth is becoming too small for us. Our physical resources are being drained at an alarming rate. We have presented our planet with the disastrous gift of climate change. Rising temperatures, reduction of the polar ice caps, deforestation, over-population, disease, war, famine, lack of water and decimation of animal species; these are all solvable but so far have not been solved.”
As Stephen Hawking finished writing and just before he moved on to the World beyond, President Trump did two things to remind us all that Professor Stephen Hawking is like Nostradamus who saw tomorrow. Trump took the USA out of some Nuclear weapons development treaties signed many years back with Russia and repudiated the Paris Climate change treaty. This chapter reflects perfectly also about some politically unwise decision in Nigeria which threatens our corporate existence. John Jacque Rousseau stated that society could be shaped by its political institutions. He said that in theory, there is no limit to the ability of political action to reshape society for the better.
So with this awareness of the correlations between politics and good governance as affirmed by Jean Jacque Rousseau, I took like three hours last night processing the import of this chapter of the book by Stephen Hawking and upon reflection on the monumental security challenges tearing Nigeria apart and the apparent inability of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to check the widening spectre of violence spiraling out of control, reinforces the question of whether we can survive in Nigeria. The present day security issues in Nigeria started from some forms of confrontations between armed security forces with the Islamic fundamentalists known as Boko Haram sometimes in Maiduguri, in the north east of Nigeria.
The fight in the north east catapulted to a full fledged war on terror just as the dimensions of the attacks by members of this terrorists network which speedily expanded all across the West African sub-region means that the war assumed not just a regional dimension but it has attracted the attention of super-powers such as France, United Kingdom and United States of America which as it were are said to be providing technical and funding assistance to an amalgamation of armed security forces drawn up from Cameroon, Chad and Niger Republic alongside Nigeria to confront Boko Haram terrorists.
Also by some global estimates, Boko Haram is rated as the third most deadly terror networks in the world. Besides the ugly development of the merger of Boko Haram with Islamic state of Iraq and Syria, the security threats facing Nigeria have become multifaceted.
Nigeria is currently waging war on three fronts; viz against Boko Haram terrorists; kidnapers and bandits and the armed herdsmen insurgency. However, the worrying development is that the government has consistently pampered one of the three major security traitors threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria and this group is the armed herdsmen.
Onwubiko Heads Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA)