From west to east, the colonies became the independent countries of The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria.

British West Africa constituted during two periods (17 October 1821, until its first dissolution on 13 January 1850, and again 19 February 1866, until its final demise on 28 November 1888) as an administrative entity under a governor-in-chief (comparable in rank to a governor-general), an office vested in the governor of Sierra Leone (at Freetown).

These countries and areas are artifacts of the post-colonial period, or what the Ghanaian writer Kwame Appiah dubs neo-colonialism.

[3] Development was solely based on modernization, and autonomous educational systems were the first step to modernising indigenous culture.

A new social order, as well as European influences within schools and libraries [4] and local traditions, helped mould British West Africa's culture.