By Nellie Peyton
DAKAR, Dec 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Herds of cows meander across the one-lane highway that leads down Senegal’s coast to Mbodiene, a farming village surrounded by scrubland where singer Akon plans to build a futuristic city.
The designs, which show shiny, pinkish buildings that bend and curve like waves, would look at home in any sci-fi movie.
In the master plan, architect Hussein Bakri has carved out space for a parking lot – for flying cars.
Akon, the Senegalese-American singer of 2006 hit “Smack That”, has said the city will attract tourists and create thousands of jobs. U.S.-based firm KE International said it plans to start construction on the $6 billion project next year.
But in Senegal, a West African country where villagers drive horse carts on unpaved roads, the proposal has met with suspicion and bemusement.
Questions about land rights, financing and feasibility remain unanswered, and locals are wondering whether the promised benefits will ever come.
“Akon came to meet us. He said he’ll do this. It could be real or not real – but I think it’s real,” said Magueye Ndao, mayor of Ngueniene, the municipality containing Mbodiene and other villages where Akon City will be built.
The list of promises is long, said Ndao and other local leaders. Chief among them is a training centre and jobs for youth, as well as improved schools and health services and extension of the water, sanitation and electricity networks.
“We welcome this project with open arms and pray that everything Akon told us will be realised,” said Ndao. If history is any guide, they will most likely be let down, said Xavier Ricou, an architect and former director at APIX, Senegal’s agency for promoting investment and major projects.
“During the 15 years or so that I worked at APIX, I saw proposals from people who wanted to make cities all over,” said Ricou, revealing how millions of dollars were spent on advanced plans for cities that were then never built.
They were mostly abandoned, he said, due to inadequate funding, a change of government or some other, unknown reason.
As for Akon City: “I think nothing will happen.”
Akon, whose full name is Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, spent part of his childhood in Senegal before moving to the United States. His first big philanthropic initiative was Akon Lighting Africa, a solar power project launched in 2014.
The 47-year-old is also behind Akoin, a crypto-currency that he says will power Akon City.
In November, work began on a youth centre in Mbodiene – not as part of Akon City, but one that locals said Akon is behind.
At the project site, a single stone sits on a pedestal in an empty field, untouched since Akon and the tourism minister held a stone-laying ceremony to kick off the project in August.
Of the $6-billion-dollar budget, $4 billion has been secured from investors, including Kenyan businessman Julius Mwale, said Paul Martin, director of the project at KE International, an engineering and infrastructure consulting firm.
Martin said he could not provide more details or name other investors due to confidentiality.
Reached by email, Mwale’s office declined to answer questions for this story.
Akon’s team did not respond to multiple interview requests.
