"It's over," the 34-year-old striker, who missed a penalty in normal time in last year's final shootout loss to Zambia, quietly summarised.
The trophy has eluded the country since 1992 - the Elephants have twice been runners-up in the last four editions, were semi-finalists in 2008 and were knocked out in the last eight in 2010.
But Africa's top-ranked team once again failed to live up to expectation and go home empty-handed.
"It is heartbreaking," said centre-back Sol Bamba, who deflected a shot from Sunday Mba over his own goalkeeper for the Nigerian winner.
"We were the strong favourite, but unfortunately we didn't manage to do what we wanted to do, to win this competition.
"The start of the second half was very good, we've scored an equaliser, but for some reason we didn't manage to make more goals and that's the big disappointment."
"I assume all the responsibility," said Lamouchi, who only took over the job months before the tournament.
"We had our chances to take control of the match but we lacked simplicity in our build up," he added.
"When you are down you learn and you have to stand up," Bamba said. "Tonight we are disappointed but we are not finished at all. We have the qualifiers for the World Cup to play and we look forward to that."
Drogba agreed: "We now look ahead to the World Cup, with or without me."
