Cross River varsity alleges land encroachment

The Vice Chancellor of Cross River University of Technology (CRUTECH), Prof. Anthony Owan Enoh has raised alarm over alleged encroachment on the institution’s legitimate land by neighbouring communities.
 
Owan Enoh, who spoke at the institution’s convocation ceremony in Calabar, stressed that constant encroachment on the school’s land, located at Efut community in Calabar South local council is gradually affecting the school’s space, which could inhibit expansion.

He urged the state government to check the alleged encroachment by the host community before the matter gets out of hand.
According to him, the situation has led to clashes and litigations which has brought animosity between the school management and host communities in the campuses in Calabar, Ogoja, Obubra and others.

The Vice Chancellor alleged that all the affected campuses have witnessed aggressive conspiracy by the host communities to reclaim the large expanses of the institution’s legitimate land.

“At the moment, the entire campus is surrounded and at several points, with only an inch distance to our buildings and it is only a matter of time that this time-bomb will unleash its deleterious harm on an unimaginable scale.

This tells nothing of the daily break-ins into offices, workshops and staff quarters we are force to contend with”. He added.Despite the challenges, he maintained that the policy thrust of his administration was to turn around the fortune of the institution to rank among the best universities in the world adding that it was on such a premise that he and his team had to work assiduously to give the university a face lift.
 
According to him, the remarkable physical transformation is supported with tremendous infrastructural development since assumption of office, which includes completion and utilization of a ten-year abandoned primary project.
 
Others are renovation of works department, university library from a state of near disuse to its current one of comfort and aesthetics’, construction of two storey classroom blocks, science blocks A and B, construction of cyber café, renovation of Hostels one, two, and three, renovation of ETF block, renovation of PREFAB, VAT block, Academic block A and B and lecture theatre.