Nj Ayuk

Nj Ayuk (born 11 February 1980) is a Cameroonian attorney, author, and businessman.

Ayuk is the founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Centurion Law Group, a Pan-African law firm that operates in the energy, financial, and extractive sectors. He is also the executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber. He has previously been convicted of fraud.

He is the author of several books and articles on energy. His book, A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with an Energy Mix, discusses the solution of moving Africa toward renewable sources of energy at the same time allowing the people to benefit from the continent’s fossil fuels

Early life and education
Ayuk was born in Cameroon. He studied at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was mentored by Ron Walters, and earned a juris doctor from William Mitchell College of Law in the United States. He holds a master's degree in business administration (MBA) from the New York Institute of Technology.

Career
Ayuk started his career at Baker Botts and then moved to the United Nations Development Programme. He also worked at Vanco Energy, eventually founding Centurion Law Group.

In 2007, he founded Centurion Law Group, headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. The same year, he pleaded guilty today to "illegally using the stationery and signature stamp of a U.S. Congressman in a series of attempts to obtain visas to the United States for people from his native country of Cameroon," and was subsequently deported from the United States.

In 2015, independent investigative website Diario Rombe reported allegations that Ayuk was involved in the money laundering of $2.5 million in Ghana and transferring $1m to Ayuk's home country of Equatorial Guinea. Ayuk reportedly arrived at GT Bank there with two bags containing $2.5m in cash to deposit in a Centurion bank account.

In 2018, he launched CenturionPlus, an on-demand service for African lawyers and advisors to scale legal teams according to corporate and project requirements. Since 2018, Ayuk has been the executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber. According to them 600 million Africans do not have access to electricity and 900 million lack access to clean cooking technologies. Ayuk's team advocates on bringing electricity to those people and plans to industrialize Africa by leveraging its natural resources. In 2023, he was named one of the 100 Most Reputable Africans in 2023 by Reputation Poll International.

In 2019, Centurion Law Group launched Centurion International AG. It was the first Africa-focused services firm to have its shares listed on a German Stock Exchange.

In 2022, the South African High Court ruled that Ayuk issued defamatory remarks towards the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and journalist Delfin Mocache Massoko with the intent to cause harm.

In 2023, the Mail & Guardian reported that bogus copyright complaints had been made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to attempt to remove unflattering material relating to Ayuk and a politician with whom he was associated. The complaints included the reporting of the Mail & Guardian about Ayuk's 2007 convictions. In the same year, he was named one of the 100 Most Reputable Africans by Reputation Poll International.

Energy stance
After working for the United Nations Development Programme in Darfur, Sudan, Ayuk concluded that the war was rooted in a struggle for natural resources and the wealth associated with them. He soon after shifted his career to focus on Africa's energy resources.

His second book Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy and Doing Deals has been described as a roadmap for how the continent could better diversify its oil and gas to improve people’s lives and grow African economies.

In A Just Transition: Making Energy Poverty History with an Energy Mix, he discusses how Africans should be able to continue benefiting from their natural resources, even as much of the world pushes the continent to leave its fossil fuels in support of global net-zero emissions objectives. He argues that the entire continent produces only 3.8% of the world’s emissions, and, even if the continent tripled its natural gas-powered electricity consumption, the additional carbon dioxide would be the equivalent of only 1% of global emissions. He has stated: “A continent that emits a negligible amount of carbon dioxide is being disproportionately pegged as a threat to the planet by developed nations."

Recognition
In 2015, he was listed in Forbes' Top 10 Most Influential Men in Africa. In 2023, Ayuk was included in a list of 100 most reputable Africans who contributed to business and authorship.