In the land of the Igbo, we say that when a man forgets where the rain began to beat him, he will not know where to dry his body. For Joel and Jeffrey Ezugwu, twin sons of Nigeria, the rain began in Enugu, where the voices of town criers mingled with the music of highlife and the laughter from evening television shows. But at the age of fourteen, fate carried them across the great waters to Los Angeles, a city of bright lights where the tongue of their ancestors was rarely heard.
There, in that foreign land, they discovered a hunger no food could satisfy. They missed the sound of Nigerian football commentators, the thrill of Nollywood stories, the pulse of their people captured through the small glowing box of the television. Yet, when they searched, they found emptiness. The Latinos had Telemundo, the African-Americans had BET, but the children of Africa had no mirror to see themselves.
Jeff would often say to his brother, “We are like the tortoise who carried stories on his back but has nowhere to lay them.” Joel would nod, for he too felt the weight of absence.
Years passed, and the twins grew into men, but the longing did not die. It was like the yam tendril, always reaching back to the soil. So in the summer of their thirtieth year, they decided to build a bridge—one that would join their two worlds. They called it Zugu TV.
Through this creation, the songs, dramas, football matches, and news of Nigeria travel like rivers across the internet to sons and daughters scattered in the diaspora. With one click, a man in Houston can watch the match that keeps his village awake at midnight. A young woman in London can laugh at the same Nollywood comedy that her grandmother is enjoying in Owerri. In this way, Zugu TV stitches together a cloth that migration had torn.
But it is not only for memory. The twins know that many children born abroad now ask, “What does it mean to be Nigerian? To be Igbo?” And so, through Zugu TV, they are given a window into the spirit of the land—its struggles, its laughter, its resilience.
The Igbo say, a man who brings home ant-infested firewood should expect the visit of lizards. In the same way, Joel and Jeff believe that by carrying the firewood of culture, they will attract the attention of all Africans yearning to see themselves. For them, Zugu TV is not merely a business but a duty—an offering to their people.
“Home,” Jeff says, his voice quiet but firm, “is no longer a place you must travel to. It is here, in your hands, in your screen. Home is Zugu.”
And so, like the moon that rises in Nigeria but is seen also in America, the vision of the Ezugwu twins now shines across oceans—reminding all who watch that no matter how far the journey, the heart will always remember the way back.
