Let me clear that up. I did not say--nor do I think--African nations have a pervasive aptitude for engineering, (heck, that aptitude isn't pervasive here), but that most of the African students I encountered in College were in engineering curricula. I think the reason for this is that those who backed them were looking for a return on the investment of sending a student to the US, and rather than place their son or mentored individual in art appreciation, they had them pursue the program which might bring the best return for the investment, both for the investor and the country. The average African does not come to the US or any European country for an education, only those of means.
Africa's problems are not simply a matter of resources nor the know how to utilize them. Their problems are far more deeply rooted in tribalism, socialism, Islamism, and plain old corruption.
When you transition from a tribal society in which the chief is law and has a right to everything to a more egalitarian (and capitalistic) culture, (something which I am not saying has been done), the complications of socialist influences (guaranteed popular with status quo ruling elites because of greater efficiency at maintaining power at all levels and easily corrupted) and Islamism (again, a tribal based culture which is authoritarian in nature), the pitfalls on the trek to a republic are many and the path is narrow.
(We have been exceedingly fortunate in having honorable men who set up a Republic unprecedented in its regard for individual liberty.)
Add in the European partitioning of regions without regard to traditional tribal boundaries, the enduring emnity of tribal groups for one another, and the relatively late arrival (as opposed to internal and ongoing development) of technological capabilities, and it is little wonder that Africa persists as a mess.
The culture has not been developed with the technology, and that includes the more mundane infrastructure developed with the ability to build sewers, roads, electrical nad other infrastructure, which developed with technology and industrial capability in the West. Here, the engine of development was one of broad based consumption of the benefits of our technology for profit, there, it is an adopted technology used to separate the elites from the masses rather than bring the two closer together--a prime philosophical difference deeply rooted in the respective cultures.
The problems there are ones of political and cultural bias, where individuals are doing well not to be complete slaves to whomever the 'bossman' is, and force is for taking power, property, rights, and lives from those not in your tribe or cadre, not protecting them for all.
That modern Western European socioeconomic models have not persisted in that cultural enviroment does not preclude the education of a select few (not always based on aptitude) in American Universities, and that education is commonly in engineering, not advanced ethnocentric tiddlywinks.