ABSTRACT
During an episode of Nigeria’s Sesame Square, the two main Muppets, Kami and Zobi, are playing with Zobi’s hat collection, which includes a turban from northern Nigeria, a striped Igbo hat, and a Yoruba headwrap. Zobi cannot decide which hat to wear, but then says, ‘Hey, I’ll tell you what! Since it’s Nigeria’s Independence ceremony, I’ll wear them all!’ He ducks behind the desk, and rises up slowly with all three hats stacked on top of his head. Kami laughs as Zobi dances, and the scene ends.1 When I watched this segment with one of Sesame Square’s Nigerian creators, she mumbled ‘very offensive’ after Zobi showed Kami the turban. She went on to explain:
Very offensive, the Taliban wear those. Because it has to do with aggressive people … That is how we see them, as evil … Because it has to do with Muslim religion. And most of the things around them, aggressiveness, wickedness and all that, you know? … because of this Boko Haram … things are so bad with their religion. But we have to live with them, there’s nothing we can do, since we’re in the same country.2
