The military exercise was codenamed
Exercise Damisa, a word drawn from the Hausa word for tiger, the
largest animal in the cat family. The leader of the operation in the
north was Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu whose middle name means
crocodile, the aquatic foe of many tigers.
Remarkably, when Exercise Damisa fully unfolded into its real
intentions in the wee hours of January 15, 1966, it left in its trail
the flow of blood that can be imagined when a hungry crocodile grasps
the tail of the tiger.
Hungry crocodile
 |
| Major C.K Nzeogwu…”One of the three commanders nominated for the execution of the plan” |
Exercise Damisa was the cover in the North for the first military
coup staged in Nigeria. While the coup in the north with epicentre in
Kaduna was largely successful despite the aversions of one Lt. Col.
Chukwuemeka Ojukwu who held sway as commanding officer of the brigade in
Kano, the operation failed in the rest of the country.
The instigators were ideologically minded army officers who were
fuelled by a revolutionary zeal to upturn what they saw as the social
and political malaise in the land.
Foreshadowing the January 15, 1966 coup were crises in some sections
of the country, particularly in the Southwest and the Middle-Belt
sections of the country.
