Star unveiled plans five years ago to build a city on the Senegalese coast, but the commission has been delayed
A seat of herons flies unperturbed over the futuristic curvature of an eerily lonely white concrete construction in Mbodiène, a seaside village in Senegal. In theory, it will be the “visitor centre” of Akon City, a $6 billion (£4. 7 billion) city across Wakanda, the fictional African country of the Black Panther films.
The plans were first unveiled five years ago by the US-Senegalese R&B singer Akon, and the first phase of construction was supposed to be completed by the end of 2023, but the project has been riddled with delays and controversy.
Since his childhood, Jean Charles Édouard Sarr, a 55-year-old engineer and self-confessed cryptocurrency aficionado, has visited his ancestral village of Mbodiène, where his mother is buried.
After graduating, Sarr left Senegal to pursue his career in France, where he lived for five years. Unlike many, he decided to return to Senegal, where he settled near Dakar. When Akon City was introduced to the world in 2018, Sarr was fascinated. through these projects, which promised an economic resurrection and self-sufficiency for the other inhabitants of Mbodiène.
“If the youth have the opportunity to have a good university, they will have more chances to find a job here,” he says. “As an African, if you have a nice life, the beach, a good job and healthcare, what else do you need? Why would you go looking for it in Europe?”
Michel Diome, a 70-year-old leader from the village of Mbodiène, who has met with Akon several times, said the task could simply be a gold mine for the local economy, which has been hit by the decline of the fishing industry.
“Every village chief would desire a project like this, because we are expecting jobs for men, women and the youth in Mbodiène,” says Diome, who gave Akon his blessing for the project.
Akon has said in the future that his namesake city would not only provide jobs, but would also be a sanctuary for African Americans to reconnect with their African roots.
The country has already become a pilgrimage destination for the African diaspora, who take the short ferry ride from Dakar to the island of Gorée, the largest slave-trading centre on the African coast from the 15th to the 19th century.
“I was looking to build a city or a project like this that would give them the motivation to know that there is a place to call home,” the singer said at a press conference in 2020.
Much of the foreign reaction has focused on the city’s Afrofuturist aesthetic and Akon’s stated plan to have its economy run primarily on its Akoin cryptocurrency. There is also much skepticism about its realization, fueled by the lack of main points in the plans.
In 2021, Devyne Stephens, Akon’s music director and former business partner, filed a $4 million lawsuit against the singer, alleging she still owed him cash for a 2018 settlement.
In March 2022, Stephens sought a judgment to freeze Akon’s assets in New York, saying that without the move, Akon would struggle to pay off an alleged debt. Stephens’ attorney, Jeffrey Movit, alleged in his affidavit that Akon City and Akoin exhibit “many of the characteristics . . . from fraudulent business ventures such as Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. “Akon City “is probably a scam,” Movit said.
Akon denied the allegations about Akon City. The following month, he paid $850,000 to settle part of the ongoing lawsuit. He said the motion to freeze his accounts had been made “out of spite” to damage his reputation.
Stephens, Movit, and Akon’s representative did not respond to requests for comment. In December 2022, Akon said the Covid pandemic was to blame for the delays and that plans were “100,000% moving”. In a podcast interview in September he said he was working on a 10-year timetable to complete the project.
The status for the once zealous task has also deteriorated recently.
The scheme initially had backing from Senegal’s outgoing president, Macky Sall, and the Society for the Development and Promotion of Coasts and Tourist Zones (Sapco), which loaned the singer $2m for the project.
According to local media, Sapco sent Akon a formal notice telling him that if the assignment moved forward to next year, her contract with him would be terminated.
The city of Akon is embroiled in land rights issues.
Extolled for its pristine beaches and surfing spots, the land near Mbodiène earmarked for Akon City was ceded to the Senegalese state in 2009 for future tourism development by Sapco.
The first phase of Akon City would be built on 55 hectares of land secured through Sapco, eventually expanding to another 500 hectares by the end of the decade. The land belonged to several hundred other people who would be compensated by the Senegalese government.
More than a decade later, some citizens have still been compensated, according to Diome. “My challenge with the land is with Akon,” he says. “My challenge is with Sapco, because they are the ones who took the land away from the villagers. ” “.
Sapco responded to The Guardian’s request for comment.
In addition to the Reception Centre, the other tangible sign of the structural paintings is a recently built youth centre, financed through Akon through a contract in which the citizens of Mbodiène stipulated the situations that the singer had to face before obtaining the blessing of the people to build the reception centre. city.
As the teens play basketball on the court next to the center, Diome shared a photo of him with Akon and praised his own interactions with the singer. “I judge other people by how they are to me,” she says. “At Akon’s in this case, everything he said he would do, he did. “
This article was last modified on December 4, 2023. In a previous version, Michel Diome’s age incorrectly indicated 53 years instead of 70 years; and the location map has been corrected to show Mali as the country east of Senegal, not Burkina Faso.