Among these are the most important languages of southern Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and southeast Ghana: Yoruba, Igbo, Bini, and Gbe.

Güldemann (2018) fails to see clear criteria for dividing the languages into two or three families and maintains the broad grouping and name of Benue-Kwa for all them.

Ukaan is an Atlantic–Congo language, but it is unclear if it belongs to the Volta–Niger family; Blench suspects it is closer to Benue–Congo.

In an automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013):[1] Below is a list of major Volta–Niger branches and their primary locations (centres of diversity) in Nigeria based on Blench (2019).

[2] Sample basic vocabulary in different Volta–Niger branches: Comparison of numerals in individual languages:[16]