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Singer Akon's plans for a futuristic "Akon City" in Senegal have been abandoned in favor of a more realistic project, officials say. Serigne Mamadou Mboup, head of Senegal's tourism development body, Sapco, stated, "The Akon City project no longer exists." He added that Sapco and Akon have reached an agreement on a new project that Sapco will fully support.
Known for his string of noughties chart hits, Akon - who was born in the US but partly raised in Senegal - announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that were supposed to represent the future of African society.
The first was Akon City - reportedly costed at $6bn (£5bn). It was to run on the second initiative - a brand new cryptocurrency called Akoin.
Initial designs for Akon City, with its boldly curvaceous skyscrapers, were compared by commentators to the awe-inspiring fictional city of Wakanda in Marvel's Black Panther films and comic books.
But after five years of setbacks, the 800-hectare site in Mbodiène - about 100 km (60 miles) south of the capital, Dakar - remains mostly empty. The only structure is an incomplete reception building. There are no roads, no housing, no power grid.
Meanwhile the star's Akoin cryptocurrency has struggled to repay its investors over the years, with Akon himself conceding: "It wasn't being managed properly - I take full responsibility for that."
The plans for Akon City had been sweeping.
Phase one alone was to include a hospital, a shopping mall, a school, a police station, a waste centre, and a solar plant - all by the end of 2023.
Sitting on Senegal's Atlantic Coast, Akon's high-tech, eco-friendly city was supposed to run entirely on renewable energy.
But despite Akon's insistence in a 2022 BBC interview that the project was "100,000% moving", no significant construction followed the initial launch ceremony.
Now the Senegalese government has confirmed what many suspected - the project had stalled beyond recovery. Officials cited a lack of funding and halted construction efforts as key reasons for the decision.
Although Akon City as it was originally imagined has been shelved, the government says it is now working with Akon on a more "realistic" development project for the same site.
