ODM Party leader Raila Odinga was a no show during the viewing function of the late former President Daniel Moi’s body at Parliament building on Saturday.
According to local media sources, the ODM leader could not make it on Saturday due to official duties he had been assigned by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Raila flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Saturday, for the ongoing African Union Summit to represent President Uhuru.
The 33rd AU summit comes under the 2020 theme of “Silencing the Guns: Creating Conducive Conditions For Africa’s Development,” that aims at achieving peace and security in Africa, in accordance with continent’s Agenda 2063.
However, Raila will have two days to view the body including Sunday and Monday before the funeral service of the late former president is held on Tuesday and later be buried on Wednesday.
Nevertheless, other dignitaries led by President Uhuru, his deputy William Ruto, Cabinet Secretaries, Governors, Senators, MPs, and members of the public had the opportunity to view the boy of the late Moi.
The late Moi’s body is expected to lie in state at Parliament building for three days beginning on Saturday.
Lying in state is the tradition in which the body of a dead official is placed in a state building, either outside or inside a coffin, to allow the public to pay their respects.
It traditionally takes place in the principal government building of a country, state, or city.
Lying in state is a preserve of the sitting president, president-elect and former presidents in Kenya.
It is meant to allow citizens to pay their last respect to the departed state official.
The late Moi becomes the second official to be laid in the state after the late First President of Kenya Mzee Jomo Kenyatta who died in 1978.
Moi will be laid to rest at his Kabarak home on Wednesday in a state of the art burial ceremony.
He becomes the third person to be sent off in a state funeral after the Nobel prize winner Wangari Maathai and his predecessor Mzee Kenyatta.
The late Moi died on Tuesday at Nairobi Hospital after a long battle with an undisclosed illness.
He had served Kenya for 24 years from 1978 to 2002 when he retired.