As we honour and salute our gallant men in uniform, we pay special attention to those of them who endeavour to keep physically fit and in good shape all year round! In addition to protecting the nation's territorial integrity, some of them have also brought sporting honour from near and far, while others command respect by their mere appearance alone! This 'Naija's Force bodybuilders' mini-series shall focus on the our uniformed men who hit the gym every now and then, some of them even competing for laurels! First up is Inspector Edward Achi!
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Edward Achi, alias 'Bawo bodybuilder', is an Inspector assigned to the Nigeria Police's Counterterrorist Unit (CTU), under the aegis of the Kano State Police Command. He joined the Nigeria Police in May 2009 and subsequently joined the Sports team, where he began to learn the rudimentary techniques of weightlifting, attaining a degree of proficiency such that he was able to represent the Kano State Command at the Nigeria Police Games 2013 edition held in Port Harcourt, South-South Nigeria, winning 3 gold medals in the 80kg category. At his home training base, the famous Bayero Square in Kano, he acquired his first nickname 'Squatting machine' (this should be self-explanatory!) and was solely focused on improving his craft as a weightlifter until sometime in 2016, when he was introduced to the concept of bodybuilding as a distinct sporting code. "I was undergoing my regular weightlifting training routine alongside some of my training partners one fateful day, when we were invited to partake in a bodybuilding championship by a man called Mr. Nazif Abdullah, who was on a visit to Kano from Abuja," he recounts. Subsequently, Inspector Achi embraced the idea of switching from weightlifting to bodybuilding, and began to prepare for his first-ever bodybuilding competition, encouraged by the august visitor. "Mr. Nazif put me through on the basics of the sport and prepared me to go on stage for the first time, and I have continued in this game till date." That first competition was the 2018 edition of Mr Flex Nigeria, a national bodybuilding championship that held in Lagos, at the other end of the country, and it was quite an experience for Inspector Achi, as he came away from his debut with a silver medal in the Middleweight category. This outing proved to be a harbinger of even better to come, as the Kano policeman took his next national championship by storm-this event was the 2019 edition of the Ultimate Classic championship, organized by the Amateur Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation of Nigeria (ABBFN), also in Lagos. Inspector Achi won the 80kg class hands down, and this feat qualified him to represent Nigeria at the 2019 IFBB African bodybuilding championship which held in Luanda, Angola, later that year. In the same 80kg class, he came away with a silver medal, bringing pride and honour to the nation. The years 2020 and 2021 were a difficult couple of years for the entire world, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its immediate aftermath, and as such, one of the repercussions on the bodybuilding industry was that almost all national championships to be staged during this period were postponed indefinitely. Inspector Achi was however able to return to stage in 2022, coming away with a silver medal in the Middleweight class at that year's Ultimate Classic championships, again held in Lagos. All this while, he was still able to represent the Kano State Police Command in the weightlifting event of the Nigeria Police Games, picking up 3 gold medals each in the 2016 and 2020 events held in Abuja and Awka, Anambra State respectively, as well as 2 golds and a silver at the 2023 edition of the Armed Forces Games.
It has been a few eventful years in the game for the Inspector, and he says he is not done yet, although securing a sustainable degree of sponsorship/endorsements has remained a formidable challenge, as it is for the overwhelming majority of aspiring African professional bodybuilding athletes. "My outing at the African championships in 2019 qualified me for that year's World championships held in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, but I was unable to attend that event due to a lack of funds. I still look forward to competing in future events, although this will depend on if I can get the support to power up my prep, especially my dieting, as well as transport and accommodation logistics," he states. Despite these challenges, as well as those posed by the nature of his job, we are proud of this young officer's endeavours in the sport!
Inspector Achi can be contacted via Facebook and Instagram.
The NBD
