Akon’s $6 billion plan to build a real-life ‘Wakanda’ in Senegal will not be happening

The ‘Lonely’ singer bit off more than he could chew with his Senegal city, and now the land will be used to house hotels, apartments, a marina and more.

Senegal has officially scrapped Akon's plans for a $6B futuristic city

Akon’s $6 billion crypto city in Senegal abandoned.

According to reports, Senegal "The Akon City project no longer exists" and has scrapped Akon’s $6 billion plan for a futuristic “Akon City” on the Atlantic Coast, reclaiming most of the land after the singer failed to deliver. The government will now pursue a smaller, privately funded project instead. “That project no longer exists,” said Serigne Mamadou Mboup, head of state-owned Sapco-Senegal.

According to Bloomberg, last year, Sapco gave Akon two weeks to begin work on his futuristic city or risk forfeiting the land. Most of the real estate in Mbodiène, which is about 50 miles southeast of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, was reclaimed after Akon missed payments to Sapco.

Now, Sapco has revealed that it plans to spend 665 billion CFA francs ($1.2 billion) transforming the area into a tourism hotspot made up of hotels and apartments, as well as a marina and promenade that connects the area to a nearby lagoon.

According to a presentation shared by Sapco, the goal of the travel hub is to "make Mbodiène a true engine of growth."

Despite dropping the ball on his crypto city, Akon has retained eight hectares of land from Sapco that will lend itself to a bigger project that will cover over 500 hectares. "What Akon’s preparing with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support," Mboup said.