We investigated total electron content (TEC) at Ilorin (8.50° N 4.65° E, dip lat. 2.95) during a low solar activity 2010. The investigation involved the use of GPS derived TEC, TEC estimated from digisonde portable sounder data (DPS-TEC), the International Reference Ionosphere model (IRI-TEC) and NeQuick 2 model (NeQ-TEC). The five most quietest days of the months obtained from the international quiet days (IQD) from the website http://www.ga.gov.au/oracle/geomag/iqd_form.jsp were used for the investigation. During the sunrise period, we found that the rate of increases in DPS-TEC, IRI-TEC and NeQ-TEC were higher with respect to GPS-TEC. One reason for this can be alluded to an overestimation of plasmaspheric electron content (PEC) contribution in modeled TEC and DPS-TEC. A correction factor around the sunrise where a significant percentage difference of overestimations between the modeled TEC and GPS-TEC was obtained will correct the differences. Our finding revealed that during the daytime when PEC contribution is known to be absent or insignificant, GPS-TEC and DPS-TEC in April, September and December predicts TEC very well. The lowest discrepancies were observed in May, June and July (June solstice) between the observed and all the model values in all hours. There is an overestimation in DPS-TEC that could be due to extrapolation error while integrating from the peak electron density of F2 (NmF2) to around ~ 1000 km in the Ne profile. The underestimation observed in NeQ-TEC must have come from the inadequate representation of contribution from PEC on the topside of NeQ model profile whereas the exaggeration of PEC contribution in IRI-TEC amount to overestimations of GPS-TEC. The excess bite-out observed in DPS-TEC and NeQ-TEC show the indication of overprediction of fountain effect in these models. Therefore, the daytime bite-out observed in these two models require a modifier that could moderate the perceived fountain effect morphology in the models accordingly. Seasonally, we found that all the TECs maximize and minimize during the March equinox and June solstice, respectively. Therefore, GPS-, DPS-, IRI- and NeQ-TEC reveal the semi-annual variations in TEC as reported in all regions. The daytime DPS-TEC performs better than the daytime IRI-TEC and NeQ-TEC in all the months, however, the dusk period requires attention due to highest percentage difference recorded especially for DPS-TEC and the models in March, and November and December for DPS-TEC.