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I must confess I am only now learning about Akon, a dual-citizen Senegalese-American rapper and R & B singer.
Credit Image: © ChinaFotoPress/ZUMAPRESS.com
He appears to have ardent fans, both black and white, and may be one of the biggest con men not behind bars.
Credit: © Michele Sandberg/ZUMApress.com
But first, here’s his greatest hit, “Smack That,” from 2006.
In 2018, Akon, whose real name is Alioune Badara Thiam, announced nothing less than the beginning of the future for Africa.
He claimed to have six billion dollars in financing, but he couldn’t say from whom because of confidentiality agreements. Akon City, modestly named for himself, was modeled directly on the futuristic image of Wakanda from the movie Black Panther. That narration was in a Senegalese language, Wolof. I can’t help wondering what those buildings are supposed to be made of, but they were to be offices, homes, shops, resorts, a school, and a 5,000-bed hospital — all run by solar power.
The place was going to operate on a new cryptocurrency, likewise named for its founder, Akoin. It would eventually become the entire continent’s currency: “One Africa. One Koin.”
The site was 2,000 acres on the Atlantic coast of Senegal and would be a great leap forward for the local village of Mbodiene. People were yearning to believe in Akon. He was on the cover of LA Style, “the most influential issue,” with the city shimmering in the background.
In September 2020, Akon, in a light blue suit, helped unveil the cornerstone for Phase I of construction. Two years later, the stone was still there, but nothing else.
The BBC ran an article noting that, despite appearances, “Akon says his much-delayed plans for Akon City . . . are 100,000 percent moving.” He said that critics will look “super stupid” in the future.
Alas, not much has changed. No roads, no housing, no power grid. Can you really put up big buildings on land like this?
Another puzzle. Hussein Bakri is the guy who came up with all those flashy visuals for Akon City.
His resume is stuffed with razzle-dazzle designs, but I can find no evidence any of these things was ever built.
Last year, a black video blogger with a channel called KNT set out to see for himself how Wakanda was coming along. It was a hard slog just getting there. It’s touching that he’s still not ready to say the whole thing is a swindle.
I suspect this guy was not an Akoin investor. Those people were left with nothing at all, despite grandiose claims: “Akoin will be used as a common medium of transfer between Africa’s 54 countries . . . Allowing African citizens and entrepreneurs to engage with the digital economy with only a mobile phone.”
Except that the Senegalese authorities had always pointed out that Senegal uses the CFA Franc, and Akoin could not be legally used for payments in Akon City.
Nothing daunted, the site is still full of slick graphics like this one explaining how the Akoin Ecosystem works for you.
I did not accept the site’s invitation to “Purchase AKN on BitMart.” That’s just as well. The Binance crypto platform reports no trades in Akoin since 2023, and a value of zero dollars.
Akoin still has a Telegram channel, which I joined to see the latest buzz. I did not find much happiness.
Akon City is back in the news. “Akon’s futuristic $6bn city project in Senegal abandoned, BBC told.”
Oh dear. However, this guy, Serigne mamadou Mboup, still has big plans for the site. He’s the head of SAPCO — unfortunate name, I’d say — which promotes tourism in Senegal.
And, son of a gun, he’s got his own video of what the sleepy village of Mbodiène will soon be like.
What’s more, Akon is part of it! “What Akon’s preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support,” Mboup said just this month.
Instead of $6 billion, this caper will cost only $1.2 billion. Senegal wants private investors to stump up 90 percent — more than a billion. Good luck with that. With sovereign debt at 119 percent of GDP, it is the most indebted country in Africa, and its bonds are rated as junk.
SAPCO says it has investors who are interested but won’t name them. Sounds familiar.
I have a suggestion. Further down the coast of Senegal at Cap Skirring, there is a Club Med.
It has a 9-hole golf course, 6 tennis courts, 2 restaurants and 3 bars, and has operated profitably at above 80 percent capacity since 1973.
So far as I can tell, development at Cap Skirring didn’t cost the government of Senegal anything. And Akon the Great had nothing to do with it, either.
The SAPCO folks insist that Mbodiène has potentiel attractif.
If that’s true, I would think Club Med or someone else would have designs on it. But we’ll just have to wait and see. Whatever happens, we won’t get Wakanda.
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