Former Centurion Law Group chief executive Zion Adeoye is attempting a return to Africa’s corporate advisory industry with a new firm, Africarta Advisory Group, but the circumstances that ended his tenure at Centurion continue to cast a long shadow over the venture.
Adeoye is now listed as Group CEO and Managing Partner of Africarta, which presents itself as a pan-African professional services platform advising companies and investors on legal, tax, regulatory, restructuring, governance and risk-management matters.
On paper, the comeback is ambitious.
Africarta says it operates from Johannesburg, Lagos, Accra and Nairobi and is positioning itself around precisely the areas in which trust is most important to corporate clients: due diligence, compliance, governance, financial structuring and institutional risk.
But Adeoye is returning to that market only months after Centurion Law Group, now known as CLG, terminated him following an internal and external investigation and a disciplinary hearing.
CLG said in January 2026 that the process resulted in Adeoye being held accountable for serious personal and professional misconduct, including fraud, theft and misappropriation of funds, misuse of company funds, breach of fiduciary duty, extortion, intimidation and mismanagement.
The firm’s language was unusually severe for a professional-services company discussing a former chief executive.
It said Adeoye’s conduct directly contradicted its core values and added that the matter had been referred to law-enforcement, regulatory and legal authorities in Nigeria, Mauritius and South Africa.
That referral is what makes Adeoye’s return more than a conventional career relaunch.
The controversy did not end with a boardroom disagreement or management reshuffle.
It moved into the territory of regulatory and law-enforcement scrutiny.
Documents reviewed in connection with the case show that allegations linked to Adeoye were subsequently presented to Nigerian and South African authorities.
A petition bearing the receipt stamp of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Lagos Zonal Directorate 2, dated June 17, 2026, names Zion Ekundayo Adeoye and raises questions about company structures, banking arrangements and the handling of funds.
The petition alleges that an entity bearing a name similar to Centurion Law Advisory & Consulting was registered in Nigeria without the authorisation of Centurion Law Group.
It further alleges that accounts were opened in Nigeria and Mauritius without the knowledge or approval of the firm’s leadership and finance department.
The complaint also raises questions about whether company funds passed through personal accounts and whether certain transactions and third-party arrangements were undertaken without appropriate internal authorisation.
A separate document connected with the matter bears the letterhead of South Africa’s Financial Intelligence Centre, FIC, and refers to a Sandton case and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, DPCI, commonly known as the Hawks.
Taken together with Centurion Law Group’s own public statement, the documents show why Adeoye’s return to the advisory business is attracting renewed attention.
Adeoye had previously enjoyed a formidable professional profile.
Before rising to the top of Centurion Law Group, he had worked across law, taxation, energy and infrastructure, including roles at KPMG Nigeria, the Nigerian petroleum sector and leading law firms.
Centurion itself had once promoted him as part of a new generation of leadership within the firm. When the company rebranded from Centurion Law Group to CLG, Adeoye publicly spoke of a new chapter centred on legal, tax and business advisory services.
His fall from that position was therefore dramatic.
He was suspended in 2025 pending investigation, with CLG initially stressing that the suspension did not constitute a finding of wrongdoing.
By January 2026, however, the company said its investigation and disciplinary process had gone far enough to justify termination.
Adeoye’s launch of Africarta now creates an uncomfortable contrast.
The new firm is asking businesses to trust it on governance, compliance, due diligence and risk management, while its chief executive remains publicly associated with allegations touching on financial controls, fiduciary responsibility and corporate oversight at his previous employer.
That contradiction is difficult to ignore.
It also means Africarta enters the market carrying a reputational burden most new professional-services firms do not face.
Prospective clients are likely to be interested not only in the firm’s expertise, offices and personnel, but also in the status of the matters Centurion Law Group said it referred to authorities across three jurisdictions.
No public criminal judgment reviewed for this report establishes that Adeoye has been convicted of the offences alleged against him.
That distinction remains important.
But equally important is the fact that Centurion Law Group did not treat the matter as a routine executive departure.
It investigated him.
It terminated him.
It publicly identified serious misconduct.
And it said it referred the matter to authorities in Nigeria, Mauritius and South Africa.
Now Adeoye is back in essentially the same business.
Africarta may provide him with a new corporate platform, a new brand and another opportunity to build a pan-African advisory practice.
What it cannot automatically provide is distance from the Centurion Law Group episode.
For Adeoye, Africarta is clearly a comeback.
For the market, however, the harder question is whether a new firm built around governance and trust can move beyond unresolved questions surrounding the conduct of the man leading it.