“What is so exciting about yams? Everything!” Zobi, a taxi-driving muppet, shouts in a Nigerian lilt to anyone who will listen. “I can fry the yam. I can toast it. I can boil it. I love yams!”

“Sesame Street,” once a mainstay for a generation of Nigerian children who grew up with the U.S. show on the state-run TV network, will return to screens in Africa’s most populous nation this fall, funded by American taxpayers but distinctively Nigerian.

The show  is to be renamed “Sesame Square”, but is also known around this blog as “possibly the greatest USAID intervention in history”. More here.

The muppets’ adventures take place between original recorded “Sesame Street” segments, re-dubbed with Nigerians voicing the parts of familiar characters like Bert and Ernie.

In the episode, Bert and Ernie run a 419 scam, with Governor Big Bird taking kickbacks.

Okay, so I made that last bit up.