Former presidential candidate Mwalimu Mohammed Abduba Dida is a free man after serving a 3-year jail term in the United States of America at the Big Muddy Correctional Facility in Illinois.
Initially sentenced to 7 years, Dida was expected to leave the facility on April 3, 2029 but was released on Parole, to serve the remainder of his sentence in the community under supervision.
Mwalimu Dida walked to freedom on March 3, so he will offer philanthropy services for the remainder of his sentence in the US.
Dida, who vied for Kenya’s presidency in 2013 and 2017, was in 2021 convicted of stalking and threatening his estranged wife, Mama Leila, who lives in Illinois.
According to his family, Dida moved to the US in January 2019 for further studies, met and married his now-estranged American wife, and lived happily until July 2021, when a dispute led her to seek a restraining order.
Court records show Dida breached the restraining order. This happened when he went to a mosque close to her residence, not realizing it was a restricted zone under US law.
His visit, which was meant for prayer, was considered a violation of the order, resulting in his arrest and subsequent imprisonment.
“He visited a nearby mosque to pray and unfortunately the mosque also happened to be around the area where he was not supposed to be because Mama Lila also frequently visited the mosque,” a family member said.
Dida is a renowned teacher, where he taught English literature and Religion at Dadaab Secondary School in the North Eastern region, and later Lenana School, Nairobi.
In 2013 General Elections he joined the presidential race in the final lap, announcing his candidature a month before the election on an (Alliance for Real Change) ARC ticket.
During his campaigns in Kenya that time, Abduba Dida promised the people of Kenya to finish corruption completely and also promised good governance.
In 2017 General Elections Dida vied again for the second time and campaigned across the cross with a Manifesto to bring change in all sectors in Kenya. At this time he emerged position four with 38,093 votes which translated to 0.25 per cent of the total votes cast.
