Yoruba nationalist movements, ethnic politics and violence : a creation from historical consciousness and socio-political space in South-western Nigeria /// Arbeitspapiere / Institut für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien ; 105

Since 1900, the Yoruba people of South-western Nigeria have put its ethnic history at work in the construction of its identity in Nigeria. The exercise resulted in the creation of ethno-nationalist movements and the practice of ethnic politics, often expressed through violent attacks on the Nigerian State and some ethnic groups in Nigeria. Relying on mythological attachment to its traditions and subjective creation of cultural pride, the people created a sense of history that established a common interest among different Yoruba sub-groups in form of pan-Yoruba interest which forms the basis for the people’s imagination of nation. Through this, historical consciousness and socio-political space in which Yoruba people are located acted as instrumental forces employed by Yoruba political elites, both at colonial and post-colonial periods to demand for increasing access to political and economic resources in Nigeria. In form of nationalism, nationalist movements and ethnic politics continued in South-western Nigeria since 1900, yet without resulting to actual creation of an independent Yoruba State up to 2009. Through ethnographic data, the part played by history, tradition and modernity is examined in this paper. While it is concluded that ethno-nationalist movement and ethnic politics in Yoruba society are constructive agenda dated back to pre-colonial period, it continues to transform both in structure and function. Thus, Yoruba ethno-nationalist movement and ethnic politics is ambiguous, dynamic and complex, to the extent that it remains a challenge to State actions in Nigeria.

On the car sequencing problem: analysis and solution methods

This work deals with the car sequencing (CS) problem, a combinatorial optimization problem for sequencing mixed-model assembly lines. The aim is to find a production sequence for different variants of a common base product, such that work overload of the respective line operators is avoided or minimized. The variants are distinguished by certain options (e.g., sun roof yes/no) and, therefore, require different processing times at the stations of the line. CS introduces a so-called sequencing rule H:N for each option, which restricts the occurrence of this option to at most H in any N consecutive variants. It seeks for a sequence that leads to no or a minimum number of sequencing rule violations. In this work, CS’ suitability for workload-oriented sequencing is analyzed. Therefore, its solution quality is compared in experiments to the related mixed-model sequencing problem. A new sequencing rule generation approach as well as a new lower bound for the problem are presented. Different exact and heuristic solution methods for CS are developed and their efficiency is shown in experiments. Furthermore, CS is adjusted and applied to a resequencing problem with pull-off tables.