Striker Nafiu Iddrisu has promised to contribute his quota to make Asante Kotoko a power house in Africa football again.

“We have joined Kotoko with a mission to accomplish. We want to make the club a great force on the continent again and also leave a good legacy for ourselves as players” he said in an interview with the Kotoko Express.

Born on June 12, 1986 in Tamale, Nafiu Iddrisu started playing football with Young Kotoko, a Colts side based in Tamale. He was later on brought to Gomoa Fetteh Feyenoord Academy after he impressed officials of the club in a “justify your inclusion” exercise held in Tamale in 1999.

According to him, he was the only player selected from the more than 700 players who participated in the competition.

Having contributed immensely to help Feyenoord gain promotion to the elite division in 2004/05 football season, Nafiu Iddrisu left the shores of the country to pursue his football career in Belgium where he played one season for Royal Antwerp.

He later on joined Asec Mimosas of Ivory Coast. After helping the Ivorian giant lift the premiership title and also making a great impact in the 2007 CAF Champions League where he scored some spectacular goals for his side, he secured another contract in Dubai.

“From Asec I went to Dubai to continue my football career. I played for first division clubs like Aldehafra FC, Shargah FC and Dibba FC one season each

“In fact life in Dubai was very enjoyable. The economy is stable. The country is peaceful and beautiful with good climatic conditions as well

“In terms of football, I will say they are not advanced like Ghana. However, what makes playing there comfortable is the fact that they have good infrastructures like stadia, training pitches, gyms, etc” he explained.

Nafiu hinted that though many clubs from within and outside the country wanted his service after his contract expired with Dibba FC, he opted for Asante Kotoko because to him playing for the club is not only a honour but also comes with many benefits and opportunities.

“At times when a player travels outside and comes back home, people will begin to say that he is finished. I can tell you that a lot of clubs, both in and outside the country expressed interest in me when I came back from Dubai. But after taking many factors into consideration, I decided to play for Kotoko”

“It is a great club and has large followers who are very kind. Besides I also wanted to the club as a platform to re-launch myself into senior national team” he emphasized.

Nafiu Iddrisu was registered after the first round but much has not been seen from him so far apart from scoring the only goal for Kotoko in their friendly encounter against FC Porto last Wednesday.

This notwithstanding, he is not discouraged. He has declared his preparedness to carve a niche for himself in the team.

He is quite excited about the progress Kotoko has been making and urges his colleague to keep up the high spirit in camp

He wants the fans to be supportive all the time and have confidence in both the technical staff and playing body that they are capable of grabbing a top four position at the end of the Glo Premier League.

The former Asec player pointed out that the 2-0 loss to the National U-23 team; Black Meteors last Saturday at the Baba Yara Stadium cannot be used as a yardstick to measure Kotoko’s battle readiness for the remaining league matches.

Though he believes victory would have inspired them and also made the fans happy, to him it was just a trial match the technical bench used to assess the team.

On the ongoing MTN FA Cup, Nafiu said the convincing 3-0 victory they chalked over Danbort FC in the round of 64 confirmed that Kotoko was ready to defend the trophy they last won in 2001 at the expense of their city rivals, King Faisal.

He noted however that they would not take chances in the remaining games.

Asked how he sees the chances of the home based Black Stars in the ongoing Championship of Africa Nations (CHAN) after losing 2-1 to their South African counterparts in their opening game last Saturday, the 24 year old answered that all was not lost yet.

“It is painful that we lost our first game to South Africa after taking the lead. But I still believe all is not lost yet. We still have two matches to play against Zimbabwe tomorrow and Niger. If the technical men revise their notes and the players also put in much effort, I believe Ghana will sail through to the quarter finals” Nafiu concluded.