Godfrey Binaisa

Key figure in Uganda's history, he became president in 1979
Godfrey Binaisa
Godfrey Binaisa in Nairobi, Kenya in 1981. Photograph: Keystone USA/eyevine

Godfrey Binaisa, who has died aged 90, was a prominent figure in Ugandan history, from the years of the country's agitation for independence from Britain, achieved in 1962, to the turbulent postcolonial decades. In 1979 Binaisa became president and briefly ruled at a time when the country was recovering from Idi Amin's tyranny and Tanzanian troops were in control of much of Uganda. Binaisa is credited with crafting the ideology of inclusiveness for Uganda, under the slogan of "Ekigaali" (Umbrella), a stance adopted by the current president, Yoweri Museveni.

Binaisa was born in Mityana, to the west of the capital city of Kampala. Aged 17, he was admitted to read law at Makerere College (now Makerere University) in Kampala, but he was dismissed in 1940 for taking part in a campaign against the British war effort and was banished from the capital. A year later, when the colonial government was looking for native businessmen to boost mining for the war effort, Binaisa was pardoned and granted a mining licence.

He married Ruth Namakula in 1945. In 1947, he campaigned against British rule through the Bataka movement. A demonstration in 1949 turned violent and, after the movement's leaders were arrested, Binaisa was reported to have betrayed his colleagues. He won a scholarship to study geology and mining at Glasgow University, but preferred partying and the scholarship was cancelled. He found work in London, at the Indian High Commission, studied law at King's College London, and, in 1956, was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. Binaisa then returned to Uganda and started a law practice.

In 1959, as the leader of the Ugandan underground movement, he declared a January 1961 deadline for the British to leave Uganda. He was arrested in October 1959 and was held for being indirectly responsible for a "reign of terror" that included arson, petrol bombings, assault, farm destruction and political intimidation. To avoid the reprisals that a long criminal trial could cause, the authorities instead tried Binaisa under the deportation act and he was banished again, to a remote village in the north-eastern region of Karamoja.

A year later, the Buganda kingdom, a central region including Kampala, was seeking to become independent from Britain and a separate state from Uganda. Knowing that Binaisa was of Bugandan heritage, the colonial government decided to pardon him on the condition that he convince his people to remain part of Uganda. Binaisa agreed, and mounted a spirited campaign against the Bugandan declaration of independence. His marriage ended during this period, and he was in the opposite camp to his father, who was pro-Buganda.

Independence came and Binaisa, who, in 1959, had been declared the greatest law-breaker in Uganda, became, in May 1962, the country's first indigenous attorney general. He married Irene Kabamori and, with Milton Obote as president, helped rewrite the constitution in 1967. But a disagreement with Obote a year later led to Binaisa's resignation and he returned to private law practice.

He was doing well as a lawyer until 1972, when Amin, having ousted Obote in a coup, branded Binaisa a Zionist sympathiser because he was an attorney for the Israeli embassy. He went into exile, first in London and then New York, where he continued to practise law and led an anti-Amin campaign. In April 1979 Amin was overthrown; Binaisa returned to Uganda, and in June was made president. He was ousted 11 months later by a military clique that included Museveni, and elections did not come till the end of 1980.

Binaisa was on the run again, seeking exile first in Kenya, which expelled him in 1981, and then Britain, where his second marriage broke down. He moved to America in 1987, settling in New York to practise law, before returning to Uganda in 2001. In 2004 Binaisa married 58-year-old Tomoko Yamamoto, whom he had never met, via satellite link in front of followers of the Unification Church, also known as the Moonies. The marriage ended in June 2005. He is survived by three sons and four daughters. Another son predeceased him.

Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa, politician and lawyer, born 30 May 1920; died 5 August 2010