NTPowerHouse Talks

NTPowerHouse Internet Team, which is based in Europe, paid a visit to its Head Office in Ghana towards the end of the year and took this opportunity to have an interesting talk with its Directors Lazgo and Sense on the achievements of the Company so far, as well as the projects planned for the upcoming year.

Bodybuilding African Style… what's the meaning?

Lazgo - Bodybuilding in Africa is quite different from the Western type of bodybuilding. Here no drugs, no steroids, no supplements or protein powders… we simply don't have the means to afford that! Anyway we are not complaining. In Europe and America bodybuilding has taken a different trend altogether, deviating from the goal of achieving a natural body status. Some western champions nowadays look unnatural… we are not promoting this kind of bodybuilding.

Sense - Western media often refer to Africa as a place of catastrophes, civil wars, famine and other forms of atrocities. It is our aim to uncover the treasures of Africa that have long been hidden by this negative perception. We don't want to encourage our young athletes to go competing abroad. It would be better to invest and organize international events within the African continent. This might even go a long way to attract other Western competitors into Africa.

NTPowerHouse has just celebrated its first anniversary last October. Are you satisfied with the Company's achievements?

Lazgo - Definitely YES! We are very satisfied and proud of what we have achieved so far. At local level we've been able to build a well-equipped gym of European standards at New Teshie, which is a new settlement in Accra. This area has a very large population and we have given them an opportunity to come and train, making them aware of the importance of the sports.

Sense - We didn't forget our roots. All of us started with improvised equipments at local gyms, which are very common in Ghana. All along this year we have met them and made them known to the world through our website. We organized local gyms contests to motivate them and award the best. We had feedback that the cash we gave them as prize money was used to improve their equipments. We are very happy to having contributed to the development of the sports outside our Gym's boundaries.

Are you going to repeat this experience in 2007?

Sense - Yes. Since our main aim is to promote fitness we are already preparing for a new local gyms contest that will be much well organized than the previous one.

Lazgo - Meeting many people at new local gyms will give us a chance to discover new talented bodybuilders. We will introduce them to the new Mr GYM contest.

About the Mr GYM contest, NTPowerHouse.com is receiving a growing number of enquirers outside Ghana. Will it be an international event next year?

Lazgo - We organized our online contests on a spontaneous basis, without any sponsorship. We will do our best to get assistance from corporate bodies that may be willing to assist us so that the contest can become an international event. Whatever the case, we will do what we can within our capacity to allow other African competitors to participate.

So… is NTPowerHouse going to become a promoter of Bodybuilding contests and finally follow the footsteps of Musclefavour / Musclemania rivalry?

Lazgo - Not-at-all!!! We believe that rivalry on promoting this kind of events for a lesser-known sport like bodybuilding is quite unproductive. We should all join our efforts to ensure the development of the sports as a whole.

Sense - Take for instance the new Gyms' Directory we have just launched to advertise other gyms. This says it all. We consider other gyms as our partners in promoting and developing the sports. They are our friends, not our rivals.

What was your best - and worst - occurrence you experienced in 2006?

Lazgo - Well… let's start with the BEST: we are popular!!! People know us …and this is really one of the best rewarding response we had from the general public.

Sense - Our website is also gaining much popularity, today we are the 3rd most visited site in Ghana, which is an amazing achievement when you consider that we focus on fitness & bodybuilding matters… which are lesser known sports in Ghana. It's true that most of our internet visitors come from America and Europe, but we never forget our local audience and we constantly provide all the useful information one can expect from a local website.

Now the worst?

Sense - Ok right now we are still mourning the failure of our major sponsorship for Musclemania West Africa that has been cancelled and postponed until a further notice. We were much committed both physically and financially to the success of the event. People even thought we were the actual organizers of the show and are now complaining to us about the issue.

Lazgo - I'm from Cote d'Ivoire and I was looking forward to meeting some of my best fellows bodybuilders from my home country. Clement is one of them; he called me just one week before the scheduled date, telling me he was ready and eager to come… I was so sorry to inform him that the show was cancelled! Anyway we hope a new date will soon be announced.

What is ahead in 2007, any new project?

Sense - We would like to get the ladies more involved in the gym and fitness matters. Here in Africa women are still too few at the gym or in any sporting activities. We do have some few female footballers, handball players and boxers, but we would like to get more women aware of the benefits of physical activities. Next year we will do our best to inculcate a Miss GYM contest with our Mr GYM online contest to encourage our ladies to join their male counterparts. This will be one of our major goals for the year to come.

Lazgo - We also have another much ambitious project. Ghana will be the host for CAN 2008 and this will be for us a unique opportunity to boost our activities. We are planning to create an accommodation for the visitors by building the necessary facilities near our gym. This should provide a house of fame for upcoming sporting events in Ghana. "NTPowerHouse Lodge" is on its way… but this is another subject, more information to come in a near future… Stay tuned!!!