West African, heading off like Magellan (7)
I believe the answer is:
iberian
'like magellan' is the definition.
(Ferdinand Magellan was Portuguese)
'west african heading off' is the wordplay.
'west african' becomes 'Liberian' (Liberia is a west African country).
'heading off' means to remove the first letter.
'liberian' with its initial letter taken off is 'IBERIAN'.
(Other definitions for iberian that I've seen before include "An old European" , "Native of Spain or Portugal" , "Relating to the Spanish peninsula" , "Spaniard, perhaps" , "From Spain and/or Portugal" .)