DOORS hang off their hinges. Cupboards have been emptied onto floors, walls and windows are pitted with what appear to be bullet holes. A statue of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a Nigerian separatist group, is missing a hand and an arm. Mr Kanu’s family compound in Umuahia, the sleepy capital of Abia state in south-eastern Nigeria, was raided by soldiers on September 14th. His brother, Emmanuel, claims 28 people were killed and says he has not heard from Mr Kanu since. The army denies the raid even happened. Meanwhile Mr Kanu, who was charged with conspiracy to commit treason two years ago, failed to attend a bail hearing on October 17th.

His disappearance illustrates how the unhealed wounds of Nigeria’s brutal civil war have been reopened in recent years. That conflict, which was fought between the breakaway Republic of Biafra and the Nigerian state, resulted in the loss of almost a million lives between 1966 and 1970. Separatist sentiment, which lay largely dormant since then, has started to simmer again, as people with no memory of the war have come of age and been seduced by the idea that the region is not getting its fair share of spending.

Helping to fuel that anger is Radio Biafra (named after the original republic’s station), which was relaunched by Mr Kanu and has pumped propaganda to Nigeria from its London base since 2012.

Yet separatism has also been fuelled by the deadly response of the Nigerian army to even the slightest hint of resurgent nationalism among the Igbo, one of the country’s three main ethnic groups, who live predominantly in the south-east and formed the core of Biafran separatism. The army has shot and killed protesting IPOB supporters on several occasions. It is not clear how many supporters IPOB has, but Mr Kanu attracted huge crowds to his family residence after his release on bail in April (despite the bail conditions stipulating he should not hold rallies or be seen in a crowd of over ten people).