Former Ugandan President Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa is dead.

Former President Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa QC died this morning at his home in Kampala aged 90 years.



Family sources said he breathed his last at 2.30 am at his private home in the city suburbs.



Born on 30 May 1920, Binaisa a lawyer went into private legal practice in 1969. He was former Provisional President of Uganda and Attorney General in the post independent government of Uganda of the 1960s.




After Idi Amin took power in 1971, he went into exile to the United States, where he practiced law in Mount Vernon, New York. While in the US, he became a member of Uganda Freedom Union, one of several anti-Amin groups in exile.



Following the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979, Binaisa returned to Uganda. After Idi Amin, Yusuf Lule served as the interim president for 68 days.


Binaisa ,was on June 20, 1979, appointed President of Uganda by the National Consultative Council, which was then the supreme governing body of the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), a coalition of former Ugandan exiles who had helped remove Idi Amin.



Binaisa was overthrown on 12 May 1980 by the Military Commission, a powerful organ of the UNLF headed by the Paulo Muwanga, and whose deputy was Yoweri Museveni.
The country was then led by the Presidential Commission of Uganda (created a few days after the coup) with among others Paulo Muwanga, Yoweri Museveni, Oyite Ojok and Tito Okello.

The Presidential Commission ruled Uganda until the December 1980 general elections. Binaisa had joined, and was made vice president of the Uganda Patriotic Movement. The elections were won by Milton Obote's Uganda Peoples Congress, however, the results were disputed, leading Museveni to launch a guerilla rebellion, which subsequently led him to gain the presidency in 1986.