First, the population of Hargeisa and more broadly the Northern region did not come out in droves to support the coup, and what- ever little commotion was created in the city and the region petered out within a week. … Second, the majority of the rank and file of the armed forces in the region who aborted the coup were Northerners, which indicates that the concerns and grievances of the ringleaders were limited to that cohort. … The commitment of such a senior police officer to a national ethos demonstrated that he and other Northerners in similar posts did not share the kind of alienation the coup makers felt.

Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, loc. 633