Plans For $6 Billion 'Real-Life Wakanda' Hit With Reality Check

Grammy-nominated rapper Akon once had dreams of developing the African city of the future. Those dreams never got close to becoming a reality.

Plans for "Akon City," a futuristic metropolis modeled to be a "real-life Wakanda," made waves when the public first learned of the initiative in 2018. The ambitious project was said to have a $6 billion budget to be spent on 2,000 acres of land in the M'bour department in Senegal.

But seven years later, the initial project "no longer exists," according to Senegal's tourism head Serigne Madamou Mboup. The Senegalese official told the BBC this week that the plans have since been drastically downsized to a more "realistic" project.

"Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco (Senegal's tourism development body) and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam [aka Akon]. What he's preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support."

The original plans for Akon City sound borderline silly in hindsight. The entire community was supposed to use Akon's eponymous cryptocurrency, Akoin, for daily transactions. The city was also planned to be run 100% on renewable energy. The bizarre architectural renderings for Akon City released in September 2020 were the stuff of nightmares.

In 2023, construction began for Phase 1 of the project. Apart from a few scrapped buildings, the only structure that was at least partially built was a "welcome centre" that would look completely out of place in Marvel's fictional city of Wakanda.

With the abandoned city sitting along Senegal's Atlantic Coast, the region still offers economic importance for the African nation. A more "realistic" approach may be all it takes to unlock its potential.

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