Abstract
African governments have made individual and collective efforts to promote development programmes/projects on the continent since independence was achieved in most of the countries in the 1960s. These efforts have resulted in marginal success and in some cases the aspirations have stagnated. The reality of the situation is that the majority of the countries are poor with weak socio-political institutions. The situation is complicated by the obvious fact that Africa is yet to make a significant breakthrough in the area of science and technology which could aid development as is currently obtainable in other continents of the world. Even with this gap, development planners in the continent have not paid significant attention to the humanities. This paper posits that the humanities are not only essential for the development of the African continent; but it is the superstructure upon which the continent’s development efforts need to be based. It further demonstrates that no meaningful development can take place in the continent without an in-depth knowledge of the history, and culture like languages, religion and the traditional knowledge pool of the African people and same being used as a basis for planning and development.