NJ Ayuk in Dubai on 30 March 2023. © Ali Haider/EPA via AFP
With 20 years’ experience in legal counsel and lobbying for African governments keen to secure their countries’ place on the oil map, Cameroonian NJ Ayuk, a thorn in the side of anti-fossil fuel civil society, now fancies his hand at investment.
Last December, the most well-connected lawyer in African oil, NJ Ayuk, handed over the reins of his Johannesburg-based law firm Centurion Law Group (now owned by Nigerian Zion Adeoye) to focus on his new venture at the head of an investment firm. The details of this new project have yet to be finalised, but one thing is certain: the funds for it will come from Asia. Over the years, Ayuk has observed an unwavering Asian interest in African oil and gas – a trend at odds with that of the West, which has turned its back on the continent’s hydrocarbons sector.
Despite Ayuk’s change of direction, he still retains a firm grip on his main lever of influence and the official lobby for the African oil sector, the Africa Energy Chamber (AEC), which he founded. In Paris, at the second Invest in African Energy conference, held by the AEC on 14 and 15 May 2024, Ayuk was quick to jump to the defence of oil-producing countries when activists from several environmental NGOs – including Friends of the Earth France and Action Justice Climat – interrupted the event to protest against further investment in fossil fuels.
The AEC is a key ally of African oil-producing countries in their battle against Western and African NGOs active in the fight against climate change, which are urging an end to investment in the oil and gas industry. Indeed, Ayuk’s work with the AEC over the past five years has considerably fattened his address book. But Ayuk is a polarising figure, with a list of enemies as long as his roll call of friends.
Friends in high places
African presidents and ministers welcome Ayuk on his regular jaunts to the continent’s oil-producing countries. In late June, for example, he was in Uganda to support the TotalEnergies development programme – set to start production in 2026 – and met with a number of officials, including Ugandan energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa. He will also meet President Yoweri Museveni in a couple of weeks. From 18 to 22 January, he accompanied OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais on a trip to Brazzaville and Libreville, where he was received by Presidents Denis Sassou-Nguesso and Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema respectively.
But the lawyer’s most ardent fan is undoubtedly former Senegalese president Macky Sall. During the period when Sall was facing attacks from the Senegalese political class over the involvement of his brother, Aliou Sall, in Petro-Tim‘s 2013 acquisition of the Cayar deep offshore and Saint-Louis deep offshore blocks, the lawyer vigorously defended him, and the two became fast friends. Petro-Tim was at that time owned by Australian-Romanian businessman Franck Timis. The blocks in question were sold in 2014 to Kosmos Energy, which then brought in BP after the giant Turtle gas discoveries in 2015. A BBC documentary, broadcast in June 2019, raised allegations that Aliou Sall received money from Timis in exchange for the work he carried out to secure the licences.
Ayuk is also close to several other African heads of state. He is received at length by the South Sudanese president, Salva Kiir whenever in Juba. He also worked on a gas strategy with Zimbabwean president Emmerson Mnangagwa, and is quick to pose for photos with him when the opportunity presents itself. Before the former Namibian president Hage Geingob‘s death this February, the lawyer met with him regularly during the period where discoveries in the Orange Basin grew thanks to TotalEnergies, Shell and Galp Energia (AI, 04/06/24). In the wake of Geingob’s death, Ayuk set up meetings with interim president and former vice-president of Namibia Nangolo Mbumba. And although former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta has not yet signed any deals with Ayuk’s law firm, the pair have forged a very strong bond.
Meanwhile, Ayuk has most African oil ministers eating out of his hand, thrilled as they are to see him championing oil investment in the continent. In particular, this is the case for the Congolese national Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua – a regular at conferences organised by the lawyer – and his Angolan colleague Diamantino Azevedo. Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri, is less likely to be seen alongside Ayuk, as is his gas colleague Ekperikpe Ekpo, who was invited to the Invest in Africa Energy forum in Paris and Africa Energy Week in Cape Town in October 2023, but was conspicuously absent from both events.
An international networker
But Ayuk’s circle of friends is not just confined to his oil buddies, who include Jude Kearney, head of the Washington office of Asafo & Co, and Bill Drennen, former vice-president of ExxonMobil. The lawyer is also on good terms with Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater mercenary group, Ryan Zinke, former Secretary of the Interior under ex-US president Donald Trump, and Alex Epstein, a pro-oil industry American author.
Ayuk’s international network has been further boosted by the work he carries out on behalf of OPEC, for which he does some lobbying in Africa. He was close to OPEC’s former Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo (ex-CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp), who died in 2022. He is also in regular contact with Mohamed Hamel, Secretary General of the Qatar-based Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). Meanwhile, he has good relations in Russia with Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin. And in China, Ayuk has been working for several years with Fang Fenglei, the founder of Hopu Investment Management, a Chinese fund present in Cameroon in the Etinde gas field. Hopu Investment Management introduced Ayuk and Centurion to EximBank of China with a view to signing consultancy contracts on Africa and oil.
More than a few enemies
But Ayuk also has his fair share of detractors. The first among them is the Congolese leader, Félix Tshisekedi. Last year, Centurion launched an arbitration in Paris against the DRC to obtain $36m of the $180m or so that the trader Glencore undertook to pay the DRC to get out of a corruption affair. The ins and outs of that affair were uncovered by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) (AI, 28/09/23). According to Centurion, it had negotiated the amount to be paid to the DRC. However, the former Congolese justice minister, Rose Mutombo Kiese, claims that Centurion never signed a contract with her country on this matter.
Meanwhile, Ayuk is equally at odds with leaders of NGOs engaged in the fight against climate change, such as Fossil Free South Africa‘s boss David Le Page, and heads of Friends of the Earth and Extinction Rebellion. They view Ayuk as a dangerous embodiment of an old world that is unwilling to change and take every opportunity to campaign against his pro-oil stance, at conferences and on social media.
And his law firm Centurion also has competition, Portuguese law firm Miranda & Associados, which is particularly well established in Portuguese-speaking African countries and in other oil-producing countries such as Gabon and Congo, remains one of its direct competitors. The battle between the two consultancies appears to be particularly fierce when it comes to landing contracts with oil firms.
In addition, Ayuk is not on good terms with the Hyve Group, an events management company which organises the annual Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town. Three years ago, the lawyer launched a rival event, African Energy Week, at the same time of year and also in the South African capital. Hyve Group boss Mark Shashsoua has long believed that Ayuk is out to destroy Africa Oil Week (AI, 24/02/23). The two conferences are now in direct competition with one another. While consultants and large private firms continue to favour Africa Oil Week, African governments, grateful for the work of the Africa Energy Chamber, flock to Ayuk’s African Energy Week.
VP hampering Malabo network
Centurion’s success was built on Ayuk’s network in Equatorial Guinea, in particular through his friend and now former oil minister Gabriel Obiang Lima. But when the latter departed for the Ministry of Economic Diversification in 2022, NJ Ayuk’s star began to wane in Malabo. Juicy consultancy contracts with the ministry or the state oil company, GEPetrol, are now a thing of the past. The lawyer has forged a relatively good relationship with Gabriel Obiang Lima’s successor, Antonio Oburu Ondo, but it is not on the same level as with his predecessor. The direct takeover of the oil sector by Vice-President Teodorin Obiang Nguema via Antonio Oburu Ondo has also left Ayuk with little room for manoeuvre, despite the fact that he is perceived as being strongly pro-Gabriel Obiang Lima.
In Malabo, one has to choose sides. Teodorin Obiang Nguema, the son of the powerful first lady Constancia Mangue Nsue Okomo, has been a force to be reckoned with since the last presidential election in 2022, keen to establish his position as the country’s second-in-command. For his part, Obiang Lima, who once derived his prestige from his management of the oil sector, has been relegated to the background. He is now relatively powerless and heads a very minor ministry in a country where oil has reigned supreme for the past 30 years. Indeed, the vice-president prevents Obiang Lima from having any influence over the oil sector, which is now the exclusive domain of the future leader of the country – even though production has been dwindling year on year and now stands at less than 100,000 barrels a day,
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