Africa has most often adopted a short term view to human development and has continued to rely on external financial support targeting short term activities and solutions. As a result the continent has failed to invest in science, technology and innovation as sources and drivers of economic growth and long term sustainable development. Africa’s continued low interest in science and technology is also manifested in the declining quality of science and engineering education at all levels. Student enrolment in science and engineering subjects at primary, secondary and tertiary levels is also falling. The continent is also loosing some of its best scientific and technical expertise to other regions of the world.

Reality is that we cannot make it as a continent if we fail to embrace science and technology. That’s the only measure by which economic advancement is being measured. As stated by Raya Dunayevskaya (1973), “the tragedy of the African revolutions began so soon after the revolution had succeeded because leaders were so weighed down with the consciousness of technological backwardness”. Another French diplomat stated that “Economically speaking, if the entire black Africa, with the exception of South Africa, were to disappear in a flood, the global cataclysm will be approximately nonexistent”.