This year the African Energy Chamber (AEC)will continue its fossil fuels lunacy. Its chairman, an astute and savvy US trained lawyer and businessman has become the black mascot of Fossil Fuels on wall street. They organize the African Energy Week which is described as Africa’s premier energy event bringing together the Who’s Who list of the global energy industry to Africa. They got a lot of Trump officials to show up in the past. You can’t make this stuff up. Erik Prinz of Blackwater, Ryan Zinke who was appointed as United States Secretary of the Interior by President Donald Trump. Gunther Nooke who was Africa Minister of Chancellor Angela Merkel and a lot of important industry leaders.
The US Independents and big Oil companies have fueled massive financial, networking and political support to the African Energy Chamber. But the industry’s open support for these dangerous policies of the AEC against the interest of net zero ambitions of world is a disgrace.
In returned Mr Ayuk and the AEC have lobbied and gotten African governmental subsidies, tax breaks, fiscal policy changes, and bailouts for on one hand — and use ruthless state power to overcome opposition to their polluting activities on the other — is a longstanding phenomenon. The AEC has rejected any sense of ESG and supported the Oil industry which has stood to benefit from crony capitalism in the form of deregulation, bailouts, and draconian laws criminalizing peaceful protest like the peace protesters that came to Cape Town to protest Mr Ayuk and his gang.
As climate change intensifies and global opinion turns more and more against fossil fuels, the industry will resort to increasingly desperate measures to survive, including backing outright fascists like NJ Ayuk who has no problem who supporting a white supremacist agenda against black people. We need to dismantle this industry — with an urgent transition not just for the survival of our planet but global democracy as well.
In an email to influential oil executives, Ayuk criticized the “woke” banks and other financial institutions he accused of “colluding to deny lending and investment in fossil fuel companies” at the expense of Africans. He claims that Africans have the ability to determine their own transition and should not be lectured by big polluters and elitist banks. He is against divestment from Israel and supports the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
In phone call with Oil executives Ayuk boldly claimed that cutting investment into Africa Oil and Gas by working toward decarbonising the energy sector “will destroy the oil and gas industry and destabilize the economy worldwide”. He urged Africans to work against anyone who wants to promote “expensive solar and wind” against his darling fossil fuels.
Pipeline Darlings
At the signing of the Trans Saharan Pipeline agreement a very happy and jovial NJ Ayuk of the African Energy Chamber said
“We are happy to be in Niamey and fully support this project. The energy industry and the working men and women in Africa applaud Nigeria, Niger Republic and Algeria for sending a strong message that the Trans-Saharan pipeline is in our best interest as it will improve energy security, create good paying jobs and expand much needed economic growth,” Stated NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber, adding that “Restarting this project, sends a clear message to investors, and important strategic partners in Europe and Africa, that things are changing in Africa. We will be pushing to have some key milestones and agreements signed and announced during African Energy Week in October in Cape Town.”
Mr Ayuk, real leaders stand up to Oil Companies and protect the African people from scams like Trans Saharan Pipeline, the West African Gas Pipeline, ROMPCO, the Republic of Mozambique Pipeline Company and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, a fuse to the largest carbon bombs in Africa.
But it’s no surprise that Mr Ayuk and the African Energy Chamber aren’t concerned about the climate or the interests of everyday Africans. The African Energy Chamber thinks if the planet is warm Africans can alter their physiology to cope with the heat. So, I guess there’s no reason for them to worry about the climate impacts of opening up the biggest pool of carbon on the planet. For those of us who plan to keep our current anatomy, however, their assault on basic environmental review is one more sign they’re nothing but a front for the fossil fuel lobby.
They have backed the pro fossil fuel African energy week in Cape Town as a competitor against the London based Hyve group Africa oil week. Africa oil week is actually more reasonable and is educating Africans about a very sensible western approach to climate change that makes sense. Mr Ayuk dismisses them are radicals leftist who do not understand what Africans want.
It’s no real surprise that Mr Ayuk and the African Energy Chamber are pushing Pipeline and any oil and gas projects around Africa, but it does help clarify what we’ve been saying all along: Pipelines and oil and gas projects are a scam and the only reason Mr Ayuk and the Chamber are pushing it is because they’re on the payroll of Oil companies and rich service companies. They have steeped in backroom politics and are brilliant and know how everything connects.
Raging against COP26
Take a look at his comments against leaders who tried hard to save the climate at COP26. He basically went to COP26 and condemned them for trying.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nj-ayuk-jd-mba-6658662_cop26-cop26-activity-6861390152632168449-GYU_/
“Arriving at COP26, I had mixed feelings. I got asked many times “How did you get in here. who let you in”
I respect China and Russia who aren’t attending #COP26. They’ve no intention of playing games and will drive up their energy industry while the West impoverishes their citizens through radical action. Ironically not attending is better for the planet than the hypocrites arriving by private jets and burning a few million litres of rocket fuel through the atmosphere every 5 minutes to show off to their friends and lecturing Africans to go green immediately with failed promises around energy poverty. China and Russia are laughing at you.
The 400 private jets used by world ‘leaders’ to get to #COP26 pumped out 13,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, yet they want you to stop eating meat, to stop going on holiday, to buy a new electric car when we don’t even have electricity to charge a Tesla (600 million Africans have no lights), and to spend thousands of dollars on new boilers. Come on man.
The music from the elites and all the woke crowd was loud and they see me wearing an OPEC pin like an insult. They did not appreciate me wearing an OPEC Pin and praising OPEC. You could clearly feel the smell of mint julep and condescension in the air. I smiled at them, I sat on various panels getting jeered for defending oil and gas and talking energy poverty by the same rich people who try to lecture me about ESG. Their newfound compassion for the poor was mesmerizing. They delivered a diatribe that delineated the injustices experienced by privileged rich people in their beautiful societies with a wing at those poor people that held them in contempt.
It resonated as a cry for justice giving voice to frustrations, I sat there thinking of the hypocrisy and buffoonery and I could only say they give Chutzpah a new meaning. Their words against oil and gas sounded like an Eminem song with relentless tempo. You had to give them credit though for their theatrics, their poetic structure had become a new creation with its own energy that spoke to these young people, but I found most of their anti-oil campaign horrifying.
There were some very nice young people I met. Just amazing kids from Friends of the Earth who really took time to understand why I support the energy sector. I hope they don’t get fired for talking to me. Too many of us have been intimidated into apologizing for being right with Oil and Gas! Not only is it morally wrong and cheap, but it doesn’t even work. We’re coming into an energy crisis that we still don’t know why we went in”. NJ Ayuk sad at the time
Really? I mean really? He criticizes those who are trying to save the world from BIG Oil companies and coal companies. How can a US educated lawyer defend China, and Russia for now signing on to Cop 26 climate accords? If you can get this Machiavelli as a lawyer, you’re certainly no fool of a client. Look at his client base. Oil companies, ministers, presidents and pipeline companies.
Support for Undemocratic Regimes and Oil Industry whore.
Many in the environmental community do not understand what they are against. Africa Oil Week had a taste last year. This devil is roundly, practically fetishistically unapologetic, remorseless, shameless, totally impervious to being insulted. Mr Ayuk is living by a code of blunt, come-at-me audacity, accessible only to those unhampered by morality. He made his legal and business career in a milieu where money and power override rules and law—indeed where the ability to get, and get away with, what lesser citizens cannot, is what proves membership of an elite. He will quickly demolish activist and opponents. Look at DelfinMocache as opposition activist in Equatorial Guinea who became a menace to his pal Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima. He destroyed the guy and then convince many donors not to give money to DiaroRombe. He exploited the fact that MrMocache’s father had joined the Obiang dictatorship as a Minister and hit MrMocache hard. He carefully used the xenophobic and anti-Semitic statements of DelfinMocache and threaten to expose and sue western groups who donate to the DelfinMocache. Guess what, the groups backed off and the dictatorship continues to reign in Equatorial Guinea. Exxon, marathon, trident Energy, continue to operate in the country with impunity and take all the resources. Gabriel Obiang lima ad his father continues to become wealthy.
Oil Industry is NOT a Victim, it is the enemy
Mr Ayuk has made the oil industry in Africa a victim and accused Europeans of trying to impose their brand of climate change on Africans. Opposition to oil and gas development is a worldwide phenomenon. Some Africans thanks to the skillful manipulation of the African Energy Chamber may feel like their oil and gas is being unfairly targeted by those opposing pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure. But people in Europe and in all corners of the world are using a myriad of creative and effective ways to oppose coal, oil, and fossil gas development in Africa which in the end will help Africans.
When friends of the earth and greenpeace tried to have a conversation with Ayuk, he demanded they apologize and cease and desist on the following
- Taking oil companies or governments to court for their negligence or deception
- Abandoning their campaign to place moratoriums on oil and gas development
- Immediately stop campaigns to get financial institutions to shift investment away from fossil fuels
All these opposition makes sense except for Mr NJ Ayuk and the African Energy Chamber. Oil and gas development impacts human health, contributes to climate change, and regularly violates Indigenous rights. If reducing climate pollution is our goal, then reducing fossil fuel production is a cheaper, more certain, and more even-handed approach than trying to limit the damage from greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuels have been produced.Contrary to accusations by the African Energy Chamber and Mr Ayuk that Africa is being unfairly targeted by environmentalists, we should expect more public opposition from Africans than we’ve witnessed.
Actions against Governments
Governments across Africa should expect public mobilization and opposition to oil and gas development to ramp up once we no longer need to physical distance to stop the spread of COVID-19. In fact, it’s clear that the Mr Ayuk and African governments expects future public opposition to oil and pipeline projects. That’s why he has been travelling all across the continent and advising leaders how to deal with the threat from environmental groups.
The African Energy Chamber has called for boycotts against companies that refused to invest in fossil fuels, pushed for anti-democratic law that criminalizes protests on or near oil and gas infrastructure and has taken a strong position against stopping oil and gas development in Africa.
These actions by the African Energy Chamber clearly show that opposition to oil and gas development is growing and that we should expect to see many forms of opposition to fossil fuel production both in Africa and around the world. Environmental advocates must not relent. Mr Ayuk’s charisma and intellect has gained him a lot of support and Africans do pay attention and listen to him. More western support for African environmental group is needed if we stand a chance to defeat this evil on our goal to save the world from oil and gas companies.
By pushing for strong climate change action and accountability, we’re helping build a healthier future for everyone in Africa.
