apple is not accepting my phone number while I am setting up my icloud account. I am from West Africa Li

Click here --> https://support.apple.com/choose-country-region/media-services Select your country, then a product. If you don't see one that handles your issue then keep experimenting with selections until you reach one that gets you a chat session or a telephone call and get the representative to redirect you.

or:

Contact Apple for support and service --> "See a list of Apple phone numbers around the world." - https://support.apple.com/HT201232

Are you using a phone number from the same country as the country setting of the Apple ID?