AbstractThe fact that 30 years after independence, over three-quarters of Africa's population continues to live in poverty and struggles for the provision of primary human necessities calls for a radical, critical and urgent review of the development strategies adopted by these countries.This paper considers why S&T-related activities were disconnected from the economy of African society, and why these countries never developed substantial technological expertise as an integral part of their development process, but, instead, generated a state of technological dependence. It shows why and how basic science developed painfully within academic settings, and the intangible consequences of frontier technologies in the development process.