Realistic simulation of weather and climate parameters over West Africa is daunting, so the performance of the Tidtke and Kain-Fritsch convection schemes within version 4.5 of the Regional Climate Model (RegCM4.5) of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste is evaluated over West Africa for improved simulation. The two schemes are compared to two traditional mixture schemes (Grell on land and Emanuel on Ocean), outperforming the mixture schemes with reduced magnitude and spatial coverage of dry bias. Both schemes simulate precipitation over West Africa with a low dry bias, however, the Kain-Fritsch convection scheme simulates more realistic precipitation in the West African convective environment. This is associated with the inclusion of a variable cloud radius and the convective available potential energy closure for the Kain-Fritsch in contrast to a fixed cloud radius and moisture convergence of the of the Tiedtke scheme. The simulated outgoing longwave radiation and omega lend support to the spatial variations and amount of simulated precipitation in the different areas by the schemes. The spatial variation of simulated temperature over the target region shows lower bias than precipitation by all the convection schemes. Soil moisture is more accurately simulated (correlation coefficient ~1) in the savannah (8-10oN) and Sahel (22-28oN) environments by all the convection schemes. Tiedtke performs the most accurate simulations of the pattern and profile of zonal wind which controls climate circulation, with slightly weaker simulations of the Africa easterly jet with core magnitude less than 10 m s-1. The accuracy of the KF and Tiedtke in RegCM4.5 in simulating the climate of West Africa is documented for the first time for application in future studies over the region.