Raila's third-party insurance cover strikes again as Ruto receives heroic welcome in Nyanza

It is Nyanza to the rescue yet again; or is it? In what sounds like a rerun of the Uhuru Kenyatta - Raila Odinga handshake script, President William Ruto is for the next three days the celebrated guest in the opposition bastion of Nyanza where his newfound alliance with Odinga is taking the political equivalent of a developing insurance cover.

It typically begins with a handshake that evolves into a third-party political insurance before graduating into a full comprehensive political cover.

When some still pictures emerged from the cattle farm of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni early this year, many Kenyans wiped their eyes in disbelief. But, this uniquely Kenyan ritual was not a drill.

And together, President Ruto and former Prime Minister Odinga introduced a new episode of Kenya’s strange bed fellows; taking it up from where former President Kenyatta left it.

Like Kenyatta before him, President Ruto's political tribulations included an uneasy relationship with an increasingly emboldened and defiant Deputy President, who like DP Ruto before him, was eager to cultivate his own political base.

And with the Mt. Kenya region growing restless and DP Rigathi Gachagua harvesting the resentment, President Ruto quickly switched to the tried and tested path of the Odinga third-party insurance cover.

Odinga initially denied striking deals with Ruto, but actions spoke louder than words. When a broad-based Cabinet was named, four slots went to top leaders of Odinga's ODM party, in what looked like a move to redraw the regional power map.

In came Ali Hassan Joho, a Coastal political titan now paired with Salim Mvurya to seal the Coastal belt.

In Western Kenya, grassroots mobilizer Wycliffe Oparanya was picked as a reinsurance cover to plug the gaps left by Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula.

In Nyanza, President Ruto gave plum Cabinet slots to Odinga's closest allies from Homa Bay and Siaya. With that, the much denied sweetheart deal was sealed.

By wooing the opposition strongholds of Nyanza, Western and the Coast, President Ruto is frantically searching for a political insurance cover in the wake of fast moving currents occasioned largely by the restlessness within the very base that saw him elected president just under two years ago.

But just how much cover can the political insurance provide and for how long?