Deputy President William Ruto on Monday gave a wide berth the National Covid-19 Conference attended by his boss President Uhuru Kenyatta at Kenya International Convention Center (KICC), Nairobi. 

President Kenyatta had convened the critical meeting to discuss the best ways to tackle the Coronavirus going forward as many Kenyans demanded the reopening of the economy. 

The conference, however, came at a time the ruling Jubilee Party is experience tremors and fault lines deeper than the Rift Valley with backers of Kenyatta and Ruto pulling widely apart. 

The event programme had indicated that the DP would invite the head of state to officially open and close the conference, but it remains officially unclear why Ruto was a no-show. 

Instead it is the powerful Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i who invited Kenyatta to the podium, with his junior Ruto believed to have spent his day at his official residence in Karen. 

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Ruto has recently been leading MPs allied to him in demanding that the government he serves in prosecutes those alleged to have embezzled Covid-19 emergency funds through Kemsa. 

The DP’s army of loyalists have also claimed during their widely publicized rallies that the state was planning to use the Huduma Namba registration to tilt the 2022 election against his favour. 

His allies have also been accusing security agencies of being biased against his camp while favouring leaders supporting the Building Bridges Initiative while effecting Covid-19 measures. 

Ruto’s skipping of the president’s event further shows their Jubilee marriage is essentially in the ugly divorce stage and the DP is now paving his own way to State minus Kenyatta’s blessings. 

ODM Party Leader Raila Odinga accompanied the president to the conference, where he lauded Kenyatta for handling the Covid-19 pandemic in an exemplary manner. 

Also present were ANC party leader Musalia Mudavadi, Chief Justice David Maraga and National and Senate Assembly Speakers Justin Muturi and Kenneth Lusaka respectively.