Singer Akon had all of Senegal excited about his plans to create a $6 billion futuristic Wakanda-inspired city in the West African country. But four years after he made his intentions known, there has been no progress, and now the government wants him to make good on his word.
In 2020, the “Locked Up” artist announced his plans for “Akon City.” With land granted to him by the Senegalese government, the community, located about 60 miles from the capital city of Dakar, would include state-of-the-art condos, amusement parks, a seaside resort, hospitals, a police station and a university, all run on solar energy and his Akoin cryptocurrency.
The hope was that the investment would attract businesses to the area and breathe life into the local economy. But today, there are still no signs of life, and the Senegalese government is telling Akon to get to building or risk losing the land they gave him to make it all happen.
According to reporting from Bloomberg, Akon has missed several payments to Sapco-Senegal, the state-held company responsible for development and boosting tourism in the area. Additionally, the value of his Akoin cryptocurrency has dropped significantly – from $0.15 in November 2020 to $0.003 in December of last year.
All of that prompted Sapco-Senegal to give Akon a formal notice to begin construction or have 90 percent of the land he was granted revoked.
Akon was born in the United States, but spent a portion of his childhood in Senegal before settling in New Jersey. As he told CNN in a 2020 interview, he’s always dreamed of being able to use his notoriety to make a difference in Africa.
“I was always thinking the day I get big, or the day I can be of an influence or have some kind of power to make decisions in Africa, I want to go in and start developing,” he said.