what about affiliate internet marketing/advertising programs targeted at Nigeria, West Africa?

I am interested in affiliate (internet) marketing/advertising programmes that a resident of nigeria, west africa may participate in, get cheque pay-outs, etc.

Try joining an advertising network. Advertising networks are organizations that aggregate Web sites that offer advertising space, and sell banner ads (and other advertising options) across them.

You must have a website, though, and some a pretty strict in that they don’t accept sites hosted for free such as Geocities. They also have traffic requirement, which is often a minimum of 5,000 monthly impressions.

Burst Media http://www.burstmedia.com
Fastclick (ValueClick). http://www.fastclick.com
Advertising.com. http://www.advertising.com
Tribal Fusion http://www.tribalfusion.com

You can also participate in contextual advertising networks. Contextual advertising are text ads delivered based on the content of the web page using an automated system.

Google Adsense https://www.google.com/adsense/

I am not sure of the other companies if they accept publishers from your part of the world, but check with the following:

Intellixt http://vibrantmedia.com/site/web_01a5.htm
Quigo Adsonar http://www.quigo.com/adsonarexchange.htm
IndustryBrains http://www.industrybrains.com

Yahoo! Publishing Network (currently in beta and available to US publishers only) http://publisher.yahoo.com/

As for affiliate programs, check if you can be accepted at:

Commission Junction http://www.cj.com
Linkshare http://www.linkshare.com
Clickbank http://www.clickbank.com

You may find some of them that are willing to accept you