[ 2012-04-25 ]

Frank Odoi Drew the BBC's Focus On Africa magazine

Kenya mourns Ghanaian cartoonist Frank Odoi
Tributes are being paid to one of Africa's leading
cartoonists, Ghanaian-born Frank Odoi, who died
over the weekend in Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

He was killed in a traffic accident involving a
minibus, known as a matatu, on Saturday but his
family only learnt of his death on Monday.

His Driving Me Crazy comic strip that tackled the
subject of the matatu's notoriously reckless
driving.

Mr Odoi, 64, moved to Nairobi in the 1970s and
have worked there ever since.
Golgoti - white man in Africa
Mr Odoi was one of two passengers to die when the
matatu in which they were travelling veered off
the road into a ditch on Saturday.

When the cartoonist did not return home over the
weekend, family members searched all the hospitals
before finding his body in a Nairobi mortuary on
Monday morning.

Mr Odoi was one of the first visual artists to be
given a daily slot in Kenya's Daily Nation
newspaper about 30 years ago - and he has
dominated the Kenyan artistic scene ever since.

His work - fiction and political commentary - was
also featured in newspapers all over Africa and
the BBC's Focus on Africa magazine.

He was most famous for his Golgoti series, about a
white man who comes to Africa, and Akokhan, the
tale of two centuries-old squabbling men which was
based on the folklore of his native Ghana.

News of this death broke on Monday evening in
Kenya.

Fellow cartoonist Paul "Maddo" Kelemba, who was a
fellow director of the media company Four
Dimension Innovative, was among those to pay
tribute to his colleague.

"Looking at the empty desk in the corner and
expecting to see Frank has been very difficult,
disturbing and has made us very angry," Mr Kelemba
told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

"It is so sad that he met his end at the hands of
the matatus which were the subject of his comic
strip," he said.

Source - BBC

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