Port Harcourt, Nigeria -- Minutes after touching down in Port Harcourt, I could feel the paranoia setting in. I'd come to the city in Nigeria's south to travel to "Biafraland" in the southeast, which declared independence from the rest of the country in 1967, sparking a brutal civil war that lasted until 1970. Refugees flee during the "Biafra War," January, 1970. (AFP file photo) Discontent with the federal government has never been far from the surface in the region and over the last few months has increased, after the leader of a hardline pro-Biafra group, Nnamdi Kanu, was arrested and put on trial in the capital, Abuja. Kanu, of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group was arrested in October on charges of "treasonable felony" and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has described him as committing "atrocities" against the state. Nnamdi Kanu (c) in federal court in Abuja, November, 2015. (AFP / Pius Utomi Ekpei) I've covered his trial for months from Lagos, the commercial hub in the southwest where Kanu is written off as a radical heretic with a dangerous agenda that will result in another civil war. In the rare times there is news on his case, it's brief. Support heartland I wanted to see what the situation was like on the ground in the heartland of his support, in "Biafraland" itself. Last month IPOB, which generally only communicates in wordy press releases and through pro-Biafran newspapers in the southeast, agreed to talk to AFP so my photographer colleague Stefan Heunis and I set off for Port Harcourt. The strategic city -- the hub of Nigeria's oil and gas industry -- was part of the independent Republic of Biafra in the 1960s until it was recaptured by the army in 1968. Unlike in Abuja and Lagos, news of Kanu's trial dominates the front pages of newspapers and radio airwaves here and pro-Biafra graffiti and posters are commonplace on the streets. Pro-Biafra supporters march through the streets of Aba, southeastern Nigeria calling for Nnamdi Kanu's release. (AFP / Pius Utomi Ekpei) In the wider southeast, Kanu's IPOB group seems to enjoy VIP status. It operates with martial discipline, has chapters in many southeast states and uses code names. With Kanu behind bars, IPOB is suspicious of strangers, fearing they are agents of the federal government. A Biafra supporter who lost his leg during a pro-Biafra protest in 2015. (AFP / Stefan Heunis) The suspicious atmosphere is aggravated by long-standing ethnic animosities in a country that before colonial rule was a multitude of kingdoms and tribal states and today is home to some 500 ethnic groups, with Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo the three largest. The ethnic divisions are being aggravated in a worsening economic climate caused by the fall in global oil prices, which has drastically cut government revenues from exports.