Akon City Plans in Danger

Two years ago Akon was accused of fraud by his former business partner who claimed the singer's ambitious 'Akon City' project in Senegal was nothing but a ponzi scheme [click here if you missed that].  

Now Senegal officials are threatening to repossess the land if Akon doesn't get started soon...

From The Week

In 2020, Senegalese-American singer Akon vowed to create "a real-life Wakanda" in Senegal. But four years on, his futuristic city remains little more than a pipe dream.

The West African nation had granted Akon 136 acres of land along its Atlantic coast to develop "Akon City", inspired by the fictional country in Marvel Studios' "Black Panther" films, said Bloomberg.

But the global star, who has sold some 35 million albums worldwide, has now been given an "ultimatum", said The Times. Either get on with the project – or lose the land that was granted for it.

Akon promised a high-tech metropolis featuring "condominiums, amusement parks, and a seaside resort in gravity-defying skyscrapers rising above the rural landscape", all powered by solar energy and the singer's Akoin cryptocurrency.

Yet today, "goats and cows graze the deserted pasture 60 miles south of Dakar", in the coastal village of Mbodiène, as local authorities grow "increasingly impatient" with the lack of progress.

Sapco-Senegal, the state-owned entity charged with developing the country's coastal and tourism areas, has given Akon formal notice that the government will take back 90% of the land unless work is started on the project, according to Serigne Mboup, Sapco's director general.

Akon was given the notice "after missing several payments to Sapco", said Bloomberg, which added that a spokesperson for Akon had declined to comment on the matter.