Last summer, the singer Akon announced that Akon City – the ‘real-life Wakanda’ that he planned to build on the Senegalese coast – was being abandoned. When ground broke on the project in August 2020, he seemed confident that it would transform 136 acres of mangroves and low scrub into a gleaming metropolis. ‘I plan to retire in that city,’ he told the BBC . ‘I don’t like to use the word the king of the city. But that’s what it will turn out to be.’ In a video rendering of the project on Akon’s YouTube channel, the camera swoops between rose-gold skyscrapers and hovers over an enormous silver stadium. There’s a tech district, an education district and an entertainment district. Senewood, separate from the entertainment district, is given over to film studios. The bit of city closest to the sea is labelled the ‘African village’ and includes an ‘African restaurant’ and an ‘African open bazaar’. ‘Every architect’s dream but every engineer’s nightmare,’ one of the comments on the video says.…