Celebrity Gossip
Akon Reveals Building Plans For Akon City In Senegal
With a blueprint of spiral buildings that resemble images only seen in movies, popular American singer Akon has unveiled the proposed building plans to launch his futuristic pan-African city Akon City in Senegal.
The Senegalese-American R&B singer announced his idea for the utopian city, dubbed “Akon City,” back in 2018. Akon City, described as the “real-life Wakanda,” has been compared to the technically advanced city in the Marvel blockbuster movie “Black Panda.”
Laying the first stone in a cornfield on 2,000 acres of coastal land given to him by the Senegalese government for Akon City on Monday, Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, Akon said his $6 billion eponymous development project would transform a Senegalese farming village by the decade’s end.
Akon City
Travelling with the government officials to the grassy fields in Mbodienne some 100 kilometres (62 miles) outside the capital where the city is to be situated.
The singer had been gifted 2,000 acres of land by the Senegalese President Macky Sall to build the ambitious Akon City. He also noted that part of the $6billion fund to be used in the building was raised through unnamed investors.
Akon declined to identify his investors, citing non-disclosure agreements.
He further stated that he hoped his project would provide much-needed jobs for Senegalese and also serve as a “home back home” for Black Americans and others facing racial injustices.
“The system back home treats them unfairly in so many different ways that you can never imagine. And they only go through it because they feel that there is no other way,” he said.
“So if you’re coming from America or Europe or elsewhere in the diaspora and you feel that you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop.”
After construction begins in early 2021, the first phase of the project alone could take more than three years, he said.
According to the city’s official website, the city would be solar-powered and also feature healthcare facilities, offices, luxury houses, shopping malls, skyscrapers, and eco-friendly tourist centres.
It would also feature recording studios and a zone dubbed “Senewood” that developers hope will help develop Senegal’s film industry.
Akon City is strategically placed at a mere five-minute drive from the Senegal new international airport.
Currency
Akon City is designed to trade in its own digital cash cryptocurrency called “Akoin.”
The Akoin is unlike every other type of cryptocurrency as it is tied to cellphone minutes and smartphones rather than currency of any kind.
This Akon has said is because more people in Africa trust their cellphone companies more than they trust local currency.
In an interview with CNN, Akon mentioned that with Akoin, Africans would be less dependent on their government. He pointed out that Akoin would give people control of their currency, letting them make financial decisions without external interference from their countries.
Responses
Akon city has received both admiration and criticism from experts and people all over the world. For many experts, the major problem with Akon City, Akon City is that it is totally run by cryptocurrency supported by phones.
For a continent where access to smartphones and the internet is limited, many believe that building a city supported by smartphones is totally impossible.
Using the case of Senegal, a 2018 Pew Research Center estimated that only one-third of Senegal’s 16.2 million population have access to a smartphone.
At the same time, Akon City has also received support from many. Alioune Sarr, the Senegalese tourism minister, cheered Akon’s decision to invest in Senegal at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the nation’s economy.
“At a time, in a context where national and international private investment is rare. Akon, you have chosen to come to Senegal and invest $6 billion in the coming years,” Sarr said.
Akon’s Investments
The Akon City project in Senegal is not Akon’s first major investment in the continent as the singer has also been involved in quite a number of charity work.
He started Akon Lighting Africa, in 2014 a charity project in partnership with the World Bank and governments to provide solar-powered electricity for 600 million Africans which is currently running in 25 countries across the continent.
