THE Senior Staff Association of Communications Transport and Corporations (SSACTAC) Voice of Nigeria (VON) branch held its end of the year lecture and party recently.

One of the guest speakers at the occasion, Dr Odeworitse Eyeyibo who presented a paper on, ‘Favouritism in the Work Place: Pros and Cons’, said that favouritism is not a bad thing as it is also part of human condition though he noted that there could positive and reverse favouritism.
“Giving unfair preferential treatment to one person to show preference, favour, prejudice, bias, inequality to another is favouritism.
“There is no way we can treat everybody equally.  In order not to show blatant favouritism, we must take into consideration individual need.”

Eyeyibo said that there are two ways to confront favouritism in work place. “You either confront it in the militant approach or through dialogue.”

State team leader of SAVI, Mr Felix Obanubi who spoke on the benefits of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act noted that the people are looking up to the media to make democracy work.
“We need to understand that your approach towards issues is a critical role to bring about good governance because if we have bad information we are going to make bad decisions.”
Obanubi recalled that the struggle for FoI started in 1999 before it was passed into law in 2011 by the former president, Goodluck Jonathan.

He however said it is one thing to have the law it is another to ensure its implementation.

President of SSACTAC, VON Branch, Comrade Abiodun Bonuola-Ozurumba said that productivity at work place is very important to moving the nation forward.

“We must all be at our duty post doing it right, increasing the revenue and the resources of our work place.”
She described favouritism as a two edged sword.  “I believe in divine favouritism by God. It is different from unfair nepotism.”

President TUC Women Commission, Comrade Oyinkan Olasonoye said favouritism is something we can’t do without. “The only thing is how we go about it without making it so conspicuous that the other person feels inferior.

She said that there are two ways to cope with favourism. “We should treat everybody right. Treat everybody well. Even if you have somebody that you want to favour you don’t make it so conspicuous that all other people feel unwanted,” she said.