Education is always better than dumbed-down services. Bitcoin's killer apps for Africa may (should?) come from Africa or Africans.
They most probably will. m-Pesa is a classic example of something which developed in Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa#HistoryIn 2002, researchers at Gamos and the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, funded by Department for International Development UK (DFID), documented that in Uganda, Botswana and Ghana, people were spontaneously using airtime as a proxy for money transfer. Africans were transferring airtime to their relatives or friends who were then using it or reselling it. Gamos researchers approached MCel in Mozambique, and in 2004 MCel introduced the first authorised airtime credit swapping a precursor step towards M-PesaM-Pesa use on the entire continent of Africa was about $300 million (Sh26.5B) last year. Bitcoin's market cap is $3.6 billion with a B. If we took every single customer away from M-Pesa today it wouldn't help us that much. Obviously, Africans don't need it because they have M-Pesa.
I think they still do.... M-pesa rely on centralized telecommunication services and a central point of failure. Bitcoin is a much better alternative and more transparent for corruption and bribes, that are common in areas in Africa.
Would they leapfrog the traditional banking system..? Well at first I thought so....but I reckon, they still need to convert to fiat for most things, with limited merchants accepting Bitcoin now... So for a while... they would have to rely on some banking functions, until more merchants accept Bitcoin.