By Jeremiah Kiplangat

Deputy President (DP) William Ruto’s allies yesterday said they would not be keen on Raila Odinga’s Azimio La Umoja meeting in Nairobi today, claiming it would not have an impact on the DP’s popularity.
Ruto’s office said the DP will continue with his meet-the-people tours in Narok, and later in Turkana, and would not pay much attention to Kasarani.
Former National Assembly Majority Leader Aden Duale, however, said the event was not worth the hype, that has accompanied it, even though the State machinery has been fully deployed to ensure its success.
“The President is not attending, the One Kenya Alliance principals are not attending. Why the hype? These are just Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) orphans who are pursuing selfish interests. It will not have any impact on us,” Duale, the Garissa Township MP, told People Daily.
Even though the allies dismissed the occasion, Ruto would probably watch today’s events with a lot of keenness laced with sobriety as the State- which he held firmly in the first term, finally severs ties with him, as it unveils his main opponent in the coming polls.
His supporters appeared to acknowledge that besides giving Raila new momentum, the Karasani jamboree is certainly a major launch pad for the ODM leader’s State House campaign.
President Uhuru Kenyatta may not be attending but with the expected razzmatazz and the State keen to display its interest in pampering Raila’s candidature, the DP will look back at better days in power, mostly in the first term and as would a divorced partner, wonder how it all went wrong.
As he continues with his meet-the-people tours, it would be the event in Nairobi that would present him a new challenge.
Back in his mind and those of his supporters, will probably be that day in March 2013, when he and President Kenyatta stood in front of State House, wearing matching outfits; the most prominent being the white shirts and red ties, as they revealed to a deeply divided country their first Cabinet after winning a hotly contested presidential election early that month.
It would mark a remarkable turnaround for the President and his deputy, who only five years ago, it would have been near treason for one to imagine that the government’s resources they were in charge of, would easily be deployed to catapult to national prominence; a candidate the DP had regularly labeled mganga, jamaa wa kitendawili and other epithets common with Kenyan politics.
The turn of events, therefore, as would be showcased today, will be a cause for worry for the DP’s camp, that plans to run a campaign away from the backing of influential figures but centred on the common mwananchi.
Duale recently said it was unacceptable for the President, to contemplate campaigning for the leader of opposition to succeed him.
“This is the only time a President and a party leader of a ruling party is looking for his successor within the ranks of the opposition. That has never happened. It is not good for the intelligence of Jubilee supporters. The President is out of order on that,” said Duale in an interview.
Uhuru has not publicly declared his preferred presidential candidate for the 2022 polls, although last week he came within inches of doing so when he conferred Nakuru town a city status.
“You can start early , (looking for votes) ahead of everyone) but before long you will run out of breath and the person you branded old, will come at a slow pace and overtake you and win,” the President said in reference to the DP’s early campaigns and hinting at Raila’s possibility of beating him. Ruto is 55 and Raila, 76.
However, in a clear show of how things had fallen apart, a group the DP worked with closely to secure Uhuru’s re-election in 2017 accused him of portraying colonialists’ tendencies by trying to force himself on them without their blessings.