An Autopsy Of A Dying Institution: How Cross River State Government Has Systematically Killed UNICROSS BY OBUN CLETUS

Twenty-five years is long enough to build a legacy. For the University of Cross River State (UNICROSS), that legacy is one of systematic starvation. In a quarter-century of existence, successive state governments have failed to construct a single significant physical structure on its campuses. Walk through UNICROSS today and you will find classrooms, laboratories, and administrative blocks built by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), not by the government that established the university. The state that created UNICROSS has effectively outsourced its responsibility to federal agencies while collecting monthly allocations and oil revenues. Other state universities across Nigeria have risen from foundation to flourishing campuses. UNICROSS remains on the mortuary slab, kept from total decay only by federal intervention. This is not development, it is slow institutional death by neglect.

The most catastrophic failure is the absence of a functioning medical school. How does a state university approaching its silver jubilee lack a College of Medicine? How does Cross River State, with 3.4 million people and a doctor-to-patient ratio of just 0.21 per 10,000; one-fifth of the Sub-Saharan African average, allow this hemorrhaging to continue? The pathology report is damning.

Cross River has 734 health facilities across 18 Local Government Areas, but only two tertiary hospitals, both in Calabar. Only 938 nurses serve the entire population. This leads to overwhelmed hospitals, inadequate intensive care units, and patients traveling to neighboring states for basic imaging services. Young Cross Riverians aspiring to become doctors must seek admission elsewhere, and many never get it on account of tribalism. Younger state universities in Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, and others have functional medical schools.

UNICROSS, at 25, has none. This is not about resources, it is about a terminal diagnosis of misplaced priorities.

Governor after governor has pledged support for education. State Executive Council meetings approve grand plans for medical schools and campus expansion. Yet these approvals are stillborn. The current administration has issued approvals and made promises about establishing the medical school shortly after the 2023 elections. But they are yet to hit the ground running. TETFUND continues building what the state refuses to build.
This federal lifeline is both blessing and curse, it keeps UNICROSS alive while allowing state governments to escape accountability for their abdication of duty. What we have not seen is the political will to resuscitate the institution, to move from empty promises to life-saving performance.

While we rightly hold the government accountable for this institutional malpractice, we must also perform self-examination. UNICROSS suffers from internal maladies that compound the external neglect. Recent increases in school fees have placed additional burdens on struggling families. Delays in staff salaries have demoralized lecturers and administrative personnel. Most shamefully, failures to graduate students on time due to administrative incompetence and negligence have scarred young lives and destroyed career prospects. If we demand government accountability, we must also put our own house in order. You cannot call for external intervention while presiding over internal collapse.

UNICROSS must reform its administrative practices, streamline its graduation processes, and ensure that staff are paid promptly if it wishes to be taken seriously in its appeals for support.

The survival and revival of UNICROSS cannot be left to a negligent government alone. What better way to empower your people than to invest in the institution that has served and will continue to serve generations of Cross Riverians? We need every Cross Riverian of means to see UNICROSS not as the government’s problem, but as our collective responsibility and our shared inheritance.

This call transcends government failure and demands citizen participation. The absence of a medical school is not just an educational amputation, it is a public health emergency. Where will the doctors serving in Ogoja come from? Who will staff health centers in Obudu? How will we reduce maternal mortality in Ikom and Boki when we cannot train our own medical professionals? With only 593 primary healthcare centers and 139 secondary facilities serving 18 LGAs, the absence of a UNICROSS teaching hospital is a death sentence being written in slow motion.

To the current administration: you have approved the medical school. Now release the funding. Begin construction. Move from approval to action before this institution flatlines completely. To the sons and daughters of Cross River: step forward with resources, expertise, and commitment. Build a lecture hall. Endow a scholarship. Fund a laboratory. Let us be the intervention UNICROSS desperately needs.

To UNICROSS management: clean your house. Fix the administrative failures. Graduate students on time. Pay staff promptly. Justify the investment we are calling for by demonstrating institutional integrity.

To the people of Cross River State: make this an election issue in 2027. Demand not just promises, but concrete action and measurable results.

UNICROSS stands at a crossroads between revival and complete collapse. Twenty-five years of government neglect has brought us to this critical juncture. The question is whether we will allow this institution to die a slow death, or whether we will collectively as citizens, alumni, and diaspora, administer the emergency care it needs to survive and thrive.

The establishment of a medical school is long overdue. The construction of infrastructure is long overdue. Government accountability is long overdue. But so is our collective action.

UNICROSS belongs to all of us, and its fate will be determined by whether we choose to be pallbearers at its funeral or surgeons performing life-saving intervention. Cross River State is watching. History is watching. The choice is ours, and the time is now.

Obun Cletus PhD, is a Cross Riverian and write Department of Anatomy & Forensic Anthropology.
UNICROSS.

NB: Opinions expressed in this sponsored article are strictly attributable to the author, Obun Cletus, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch