"The first thing we do," said the character in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society. Most scholars agree that Shakespeare’s actual intent was “to portray lawyers as the guardians of the rule of law who stand in the way of a fanatical mob.” There is now more than ever a continuous need to be a new trend of attacking lawyers for whom their clients are deserve justice, and to courageously stand on issues even in difficult cases.

Reports by disgraced and corrupt Spanish police commissioner, Jose Villajero, Delfin Mocache Massoko and OCCRP that Equatorial Guinea’s Minister of Hydrocarbons, Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima benefited from a construction contract are false.

The claims of any such investigations are false. The documents used to make these claims do not even exist. This is a classic Jose Villarejo and Delfin Massoko tactic. The American Oil Companies will not pay any funds to a government official and before hiring a company to do a construction project, the company has to go through extreme vetting and an enhanced due diligence process where third party risk mitigation is also considered. Sounds like common sense to anyone who reads. The fantasy of Jose Villajero, OCCRP and Mr. Delfin Mocache Massoko comes from the same group that made headlines on January 6, 2015 with another salacious accusation (http://bit.ly/3btEOio) of “Mbega Obiang Lima tenia previsto enviar dos contenedores de dinero a Santo Tomé y Príncipe”. We will not fall for this con game twice.

Five years ago, the same group accused the Minister of having containers of money stored in the port of Malabo. Sounds familiar? Here they go again. Always in January. This time they are more desperate. They have to comply with a contractual agreement with Jose Villajero whom according to the Spanish government was paid 5.3 million euros to spy and smear Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima and anyone associated with him.

This redundant and vindictive smear campaign by Jose Villajero, OCCRP and Mr Delfin Mocache Massoko is nothing more than a desperate attempt to make headlines and walk away from their collaboration and corruption. They took Jose Villajero’s money, they spent it and now they have to lie and fabricate stories in a brazen attempt to fulfil their contractual obligations.

After 10 years of an aggressive campaign against H.E. Gabriel Obiang Lima, if they had something that was illegal, they would already have turned it over to the judiciary.

Centurion is a firm built on strong values. We are Pro-African and Pan-African and we do not apologize for defending liberty and pursuing justice. Corporations and governments in Europe, the United States and across Africa hire law firms like the Centurion Law Group to get a job done. We do not breach any ethical lines. We would rather walk away. Just like in Europe and the United States, we should be commended for having trained so many African lawyers on how to negotiate complex agreements and deliver results in a global industry where Africans never had a chance to compete. We make no apologies for that. We have trained and opened doors to more African in oil & gas lawyer than any other law firm that operates in the African continent has. No firm knows the energy industry better than we do. Yet the perception remains that if you are Western firm, you are savvy and if you are an African firm, you are crooked. Oh well.  Who would you hire to do your negotiations, bartenders? Snarky tweeters? Idealistic pundits? Or well-trained lawyers who got your back no matter what?

We will not stop our advocacy and litigation on this matter until these criminals are brough to justice. OCCRP and Delfin Mocache Massoko should explain the reason behind payments by Jose Villarejo for Delfin Mocache Massoko’s mental health treatment, website upgrades and various eye lenses replacements. If these were gifts by Mr. Jose Villarejo, it should have been disclosed and reported. What about the cash payments to Delfin Mocache Massoko?

For OCCRP, Jose Villarejo and Delfin Mocache Massoko, the term “lawyer” has a negative connotation. For them, the public should hate lawyers. Well, Centurion lawyers are hired guns who use legal skills, connections and free market idea to get better outcomes for the special interest corporate groups they represent. We have showed African lawyers that they can dream without making dreams their master and like Rudyard Kipling, that they can walk with Kings without losing the common touch. We will continue doing just that.

Meanwhile, their plan is clear. They attack an effective Minister who fights hard for local content empowerment, poverty alleviation, economic growth and job creation in the energy sector. We must not be fooled. In a move to get out of Covid 19, if they succeed in destroying the economic lifeblood of many African countries, to what will citizens turn to? All of the productive sectors are contributing and are in build back mode but we cannot and must not destroy what we have now, in the hope of finding something better down the road.

Delfin Mocache Massoko, OCCRP and Jose Villarejo are not activist as far as we are concerned. They are pretenders, charlatans, con men and opportunist who are looking for any organization they can find to legitimize their views of extortion, profiteering, racial and religious bigotry and intolerance. We repudiate them and their views and we are taking steps to see that they are disenfranchised and brought to justice.

This generation of Africans continue to let their voices known and are being heard in the right corridors of influence and stand strong condemnation of acts that only seek to undermined us for who we are.