Singer Akon gets final notice to begin $6 billion futuristic city or forfeit land

Popular R&B singer and entrepreneur Akon has received a final formal notice from the Senegalese government, urging him to begin construction on his $6 billion Akon City project.

General Manager Serigne Mboup of Sapco-Senegal, the state-owned entity responsible for developing the country’s coastal and tourism areas, stated that Akon risks losing 90% of the land granted to him if it remains undeveloped, Bloomberg reported.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Akon received this notice after missing several payments to Sapco.

The planned city would feature condominiums, offices, parks, a university, an ocean resort, and a 5,000-bed hospital. The city is intended to attract tourists and investors

The city is intended to attract tourists and investors. In August 2020, Akon told international media that he planned to retire there.

Local authorities were open to Akon’s promises to attract businesses and create jobs in an economically deprived, mostly agrarian part of Senegal. But the project never progressed beyond the stage of promises, and now it seems his urban planning dream has died.

Akon said he was inspired by the movie Black Panther, and he refers to Akon City as a “real-life Wakanda” that uses the latest technologies of blockchain and cryptocurrency. The city was to be solar-powered and environmentally friendly, the artist said in 2020. Residents and visitors would use the Akoin cryptocurrency launched that year.

Akoin — introduced at the peak of a cryptocurrency bull run in November 2020 — is now hardly traded, if at all. The Bitget crypto exchange quoted it at $0.15 on Nov. 19, 2020, and it had dwindled to $0.003 by Dec. 11, the last available price.

Akon is expected in Senegal’s capital in the coming weeks to reassure partners of the viability of the project, his team said.

While the construction of the first Akon City in Senegal had not yet started, Akon also set his eyes on East Africa and revealed plans to build a second city in Uganda.

Yoweri Museveni, president of the East African country since 1986, allocated one square mile of land to the singer in 2021.

So far, preliminary work is pending “because occupants resisted the move and sent away surveyors,” Uganda Land Commission Secretary Andrew Nyumba said.