NJ Ayuk is a successful lawyer with several years of experience under his belt. While he stays focused on helping his clients with their important needs, he also concentrates on helping those less fortunate in his home continent.
After going to law school, Ayuk returned to Africa, where he was born, and soon realized there was a dire need for more energy resources and infrastructure. That said, he made a commitment to make lasting change for millions of people in Africa. He would accomplish this by sitting at the table with big energy companies and fighting for what’s right.
NJ Ayuk is the CEO and founder of the international firm Centurion Law Group, and he also serves as chairman of the African Energy Chamber. As Ayuk grew up with ambitions involving social justice and helping the disadvantaged, he knew he wanted this as a career. That said, his job is always focused on helping people.
“I worked with the United Nations at the start of my career, thinking about human rights and gender-based violence,” NJ says. “I felt I was part of an African generation that wanted to see how we could improve the continent.”
As NJ knew that energy was a focal point, he wanted to gain more experience in the field. “Unfortunately, I had no idea what energy was. If you gave me a class in energy law when I was in law school, I’d have run away. Because I went to law school in the United States, I had a rhetoric ingrained in me to be against big oil. I thought they were the problem.”
While big oil still needs to change their ways for the good of the planet, Ayuk understood that energy was where Africa needed the most help. He made this conclusion when returning to his homeland after his studies. “I was traveling around Africa, I was in Khartoum [Sudan] actually, when I realized that a lot of our problems came from lack of energy,” Ayuk says. He went on to talk about how energy drives several different aspects of society. Schools need more energy resources to improve educational opportunities for kids and college students. Hospitals need energy to save lives and help people cure from disease and illness. Furthermore, Africa needs more energy to industrialize and move forward as a society. “The severe lack of energy across the continent, I realized that it’s part of the problem,” Ayuk adds.
NJ Ayuk plans to speak with big energy companies to bring affordable energy to Africans across the continent. He wants to become a new type of lawyer, one who fights for disadvantaged people in this energy crisis.
With a strong passion for helping those less fortunate, NJ Ayuk won’t stop fighting for what he believes in.
