The Riddle of the Cock, Scientific Research Process and Solving Sustainable Development Challenges

Riddles in Africa, are means of explaining to people or finding solutions to some puzzles of life in such a way that at the beginning of the riddles, the concerned person/s or group would not know that everything is about him/her because they are always intellectual. In addition, a sustainable development (SD) challenge requires making decisions that call for a scientific process to make such a decision rational. Many researchers struggled with understanding the scientific process of achieving a sustainable development goal or/and any challenge that faces any sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, the sustainable development research process in its nature is a puzzle that needs an intellectual interpretation and understanding. With these requirements of the process and to have a better understanding of the same, an indigenous riddle is presented in this study to unlock the mysteries in the sustainable development research process to arrive at a rational SDG or/and solve any SD challenges. The objectives include making readers: understand that the sustainable development research process is in stages/steps; know that one stage/step leads to the next one; know the components of each stage/step; and use the stages to formulate a research process that will solve a sustainable development challenge. The method involved using the different stages in the riddle (situation analysis) to explain what the process is all about. Findings from the riddle presented it as suitable to explain the sustainable development research process. It was concluded that the adoption of indigenous riddles will go a long way to explain the scientific research process in solving any of the sustainable development challenges.