MEDIA STATEMENT

28 October 2026

New Open Secrets investigation reveals fresh details of a shady South African ‘law firm’ behind mega oil and gas deals across Africa

Today, Open Secrets publishes a new investigative report; The Oil and Gas Kingpin of Africa: The ‘Law Firm’ Brokering Africa’s Biggest Oil and Gas Deals. The report profiles lawyer and businessman, NJ Ayuk, and his company, CLG (formerly known as Centurion Law Group). Both have a wide network of influence and power across the African continent.

Key new findings include:

• NJ Ayuk and his firm CLG are not a registered law firm despite providing legal advice in oil and gas deals with multi-billion rand implication for the fiscus at state owned entities such as the Central energy Fund and PetroSA.
• Allegations of financial wrongdoing by a major oil company in Equatorial Guinea and elsewhere.
• The lobbying work that Ayuk undertakes through and draws benefit from in the African Energy Chamber, which has embraced a ‘Drill baby drill’ mantra — also used by the likes of Donald Trump — for profit despite the obvious harm this causes across the African continent.
  

The report relies on important new information provided to Open Secrets by several whistleblowers, and media reporting to profile CLG and Ayuk’s involvement in fossil fuel contracts across Africa.

Headquartered in Johannesburg, CLG has been linked to dubious state contracts involving fossil fuel deals in South Africa. These deals include providing advice on multiple irregular tenders linked to PetroSA that later fell apart, and the CEF’s purchase of the defunct Sapref refinery for a token R1 despite its multi-billion liabilities. Previously, employees within these state-owned entities have alleged that CLG has provided bad advice and over-charged for their work.

CLG was able to work on these state contracts despite significant questions concerning istlegal status in South Africa to act as a law firm. In The Oil and Gas Kingpin, Open Secrets reveals new details about these contracts and internal CLG employee correspondence. They claim that the company was providing legal services despite not being a law firm. The Legal Practice Council confirmed that no company by the name of CLG is not registered to offer legal services in South Africa, bringing into question how CLG has been able to secure state contracts seemingly without the necessary legal registration to provide these services.

The report also documents CLG’s role in other state-linked controversies in Africa. In Equatorial Guinea, CLG was invoiced for what appears to be non-business related trips for the President’s son and country’s former hydrocarbons minister, Gabriel Obiang Lima, and his wife at the time that Lima led the ministry.

Through whistleblower documents, Open Secrets also found that an Equatoguinean company, Atlas Petroleum, had written a letter of demand through its lawyers confronting CLG about payments totalling $88.8 million (around R1.4 billion at the time) that CLG had made on behalf the company while it was acting as its law firm, but which had not been explained and accounted for.

Despite this dubious track record, CLG retains a high level of influence and power and is awarded public contracts in South Africa and across the continent.. Ayuk regularly rubs shoulders with top elected politicians in South Africa as the chairperson of the African Energy Chamber (AEC), a powerful and well-networked oil and gas lobby group headquartered in Johannesburg. The AEC hosts an annual swanky event at the Cape Town International Convention Centre each year that draws a guest list ranging from international politicians — as well as South African Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe — and corporate giants in the sector, such as Total, BP and Shell.

While Ayuk and CLG benefit from public funds, the fossil fuel industry continues wreck harm on people and our environment across Africa.

Ayuk has denied has responded to our detailed investigation, stating that CLG has operated legally and remains proud of its work.

 

For media queries please contact us at:

021 447 2701, 0725650173 or researcher@opensecrets.org.za