Akon a celebrated international musician did meet President Museveni in 2021 and tabled interest in building a Satellite futuristic city in Uganda. As usual, our ever excited president when it comes to investment went ahead to give the idea a go ahead.
Akon’s plan is to do a replica of the Akon City in Senegal whose launch had been done three years earlier in 2018. Land was quickly identified in my Mukono neighborhood, Mpungwe Subcounty on the shores of L. Victoria, and he was promised a Square Mile to achieve his dream.
It is a city that is expected to be green by running off solar energy, have uniquely designed structures that are in harmony with the environment, possess infrastructure aimed at giving its occupants a first class existence on mother earth, have its own security as well as management aimed at running it. Above all, it’s meant to have its own currency, a Cryptocurrency called Akoin.
The year is now 2024, six years after the grand launch of the plans for Akon City Senegal and all that is present there is an open land with cows grazing around.
Akon, had indicated then that the Senegal City would cost Six Billion Dollars and he had already sourced Four Billion Dollars although the financiers were kept secret except for a Kenyan. As we speak, nothing has kicked off in Senegal and yet officials in Uganda have already started the process of displacing the current occupants of the identified land in Mukono.
These officials are up to no good either intentionally or unintentionally. The alleged Akon City that they go around preaching is never going to be built. It is a ploy by a connected few to dispossess Ugandans of their ancestral lands in order to pave way for their selfish developments.
We have had similar occurrences before where high flying investors are used to grab land and redirect its usage as well as ownership.
Shimoni land, a 15.1 acre property in the City Centre was allegedly allocated to Kingdom Hotel Investments owned by Saudi Arabian Tycoon Price Alwaleed bin Talal under the guise of building a hotel only to later change hands and today, the ownership is very different let alone its usage.
Naguru Estate is another scam that involved Government of Uganda giving the land to Opec Prime Properties in 2007 with a promise to construct 1,747 residential units. Seventeen years down the road, all we see is a subdivision of the land into plots being developed by individuals.
Why is the Akon City a Kiwaani?
Kiwaani is a slang in Uganda that implies a con job or hoodwinking.
- Unclear Financing Source. The project hype is around the illusion that Akon has the money to undertake this project thanks to his stardom. No!! His net worth is currently standing at 60 Million US Dollars, he needs to source money to run this initiative. When one considers how he has failed to kick off with the Senegalese Akon City six years down the road and even only paid compensation for 50 Hectares of the over 500 Hectares that the Senegalese Government assigned him, many questions arise.
- Lack of Credibility. Akon is a musician and well, a businessman too. However, business investment has lanes. He lacks the credibility to operate in this lane. He cannot show his lineup of team players to actualize such a massive project across numerous sites in Africa let alone Senegal alone. This is the intentional stupidity that many Ugandan technocrats exhibit when undertaking such investment proposals only to leave the President licking his wounds after being misled.
- Operating on Crytpocurrency. Akon came up with the Akoin cryptocurrency and apparently feeble brains get amazed at hearing that as a catchword in his bid. He has plans of making the city use Cryptocurrency strictly in its operation.
First of all, launching a cryptocurrency is as easy as having a phone app developed for you or your organization. So, that should not be seen as an amazing feat.
Secondly, a look at the Whitepaper of the Akoin crypto shows that it contains the same classic preambles we find in other Crypto whitepapers with nothing largely unique about his offering save for the ability to swap mobile credits. Its got repeated mentions about how it will give brands more access to consumers within Africa, which almost sounds like something out of the dystopian literature (a genre of fiction that paints a picture of an imagined world where things are horribly wrong.)
Thirdly, the Akoin is not listed on any of the sensible centralized exchanges that I was able to check out like Binance, Gate.io and MexC. Could it be a shit coin? (a cryptocurrency with little to no value or no immediate, discernible purpose.)
How will the Government officials whose Central bank is still Cryptocurrency averse reconcile the entry of Cryptocurrency into the daily affairs of its citizens? Remember, Crypto is seen as an option that works against Fiat Currency. - Land. There is an ongoing move to push people out of the land in Mpungwe Subcounty with the false promise of compensation. The illusion being sold is that Akon will pay. However, this is a big lie. Even Government does not have the money to pay. The goal is simply to free the land then some whales come and start parceling it out to themselves.
What is the End Game?
The officials involved in this land saga know too well that Akon will not build that city in Mukono. Their goal is to fraudulently acquire land from the local dwellers and parcel it out to the connected few individuals at a give away price.
It is common knowledge that the Jinja Expressway shall be passing nearby with an off ramp to Mukono. Secondly, a pier is going to be developed at Katosi landing site to enable the upcoming ferry services that shall interconnect Mukono with PortBell hence reducing on the travel time between Mukono and Kampala to as low as a 20 minutes journey.
It is also already rumored that companies like MTN are already acquiring land in the same area to set up staff housing in order to get out of the clogged and poorly planned Kampala suburbs.
DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE ???
The lyrics below are from a local song that the singer used to express his frustration at the unending hoodwinking.
Nze wano mu Kampala byansobera dda (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Eeh nze mu City byantabula dda (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Eeh ne mu Ghetto byansobera dda (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Mukyalo ne City byantabula dda (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Kiwaani kiwaani (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Kiwaani kiwaani (Buli omu asiba kiwaani)
Wire James
X – @wirejames
The Wire Perspective 