505094
Former Ugandan leader Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa went to see his physicians for a routine visit on Monday. Family sources informed this newspaper yesterday that Mr Binaisa’s blood sugar levels had fluctuated prior to his visit but his doctors said he wasn’t in any danger, releasing him to go back home.
His daughter, Ms Nakalema Binaisa, offered this newspaper insight into her fathers last moments. Excerpts;
He was in very good spirit. With hindsight I actually realise now that he was saying good bye. On Monday the doctors told us that his sugar levels had stabilised. We went back home, he was eating his food and he was walking. Last night [Wednesday] the nurse went to check on him. He had a couple of nurses looking after him for both during the day and at night. So she went to check on him and he asked her: “Nurse olibulingi? Are you okay?” as he smiled. She responded and said yes Mzee I am so fine. He seemed happy to ask her.
Good bye...
The nurse said he was in a cheerful mood. He woke up at 3:00am and she checked on him again and told him: “Mzee dayo owebakee, (please go back to sleep). Before, he had been asking about his late mother, our grand mother, and she told him everybody is okay. Then, he turned to his side and she tucked him in and he went to sleep.
She went to wake him at 6 am to take his bath and that’s when she realised he couldn’t wake up. The doctors said his heart just stopped beating. It wasn’t a heart attack.
We are still in shock. He was such a cheerful man. You know he suffered a stroke two years ago and he has had problems for a while. We thought he would make it 100 because whenever he got ill, he would come around again. We are grateful to God that we have had that extra time with Dad. We tried our best and offered him the best medical care. There was nothing left that was not done. He was happy and smiling.
He was a sensitive man and I remember him always telling me: “This is your Africa. You have to stay here and care for your Africa. You won’t get another.”
We are so grateful to Uncle Gordon Wavamuno who ensured that Daddy’s life story was recorded and told on WBS so all the young people can get to know everything about his life. As a family, we are also grateful to you all.

506093
Former President Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa’s death on Thursday means Uganda is one of only a handful of democracies without a living ex-president. Former Ugandan leaders General Tito Okello Lutwa, Apollo Milton Obote, Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada and Paulo Muwanga have all perished in the last 24 years.
Unusually, Godfrey Binaisa is the only one of the five on this list to have breathed his last on home soil. He had earlier in the 1980’s exiled himself in New York, US, where he practiced law and only returned to Uganda in the 1990s to become the first and only ex-president to benefit from the provisions of the 1995 Uganda Constitution.
Milton Obote (1925-2005)
With Obote, his surviving wife, Ms Miria Kalule, the party he founded- Uganda People’s Congress and a couple of Pan Africanists like journalist Andrew Mwenda who kept petitioning the government to allow him to return home. He never lived to see Ugandan soil again, and the two-time ex-president was only returned to Uganda in a coffin after he died of kidney failure in South Africa. He was living in Zambia. In August 2005, he announced his intention to step down as leader of the UPC. On October 10, 2005, he died. To the surprise of many, the late Obote was given a state funeral, which was attended by President Museveni.
Paulo Muwanga (1924 - April 1, 1991)
He was the chairman of the governing Military Commission that deposed Godfrey Binaisa on May 12, 1980. He was the de-facto President of Uganda for a few days in May 1980 until the establishment of the Presidential Commission of Uganda. He held the office of President of Uganda between May 22 and December 15, 1980. Among the members of the commission were President Museveni, Oyite Ojok and Tito Okello who had deposed Binaisa in the May 12 1980 coup. From August 1, to August 25, 1980, he served as prime minister. Following the elections on December 10, 1980, Muwanga installed himself as the head of the Electoral Commission and declared Obote’s Uganda People’s Congress the winner.

Gen. Tito Lutwa Okello (1914–1996)
He was a Ugandan military officer and politician. He was the President of Uganda from July 26, 1985 to January 26, 1986. He was one of the commanders in the coalition between the Tanzania People’s Defense Force and the Uganda National Liberation Army, who removed Amin from power in 1979. He was selected to be the commander of the Ugandan National Liberation Army from 1980 to 1985. In July 1985, together with Bazilio Olara-Okello, Tito Okello staged the coup d’état that ousted Obote. He ruled for six months until he was overthrown by the National Resistance Army (NRA) operating under the leadership of President Museveni. He went to exile in Kenya, where he died on June 2, 1996. His remains were repatriated and buried at his ancestral home in Kitgum District. He was 82. In January 2010, Gen. Lutwa was posthumously awarded the Kagera National Medal of Honour for fighting the Idi Amin dictatorship.
Gen. Idi Amin Dada (1925-2003)
On July 20, 2003, one of Amin’s wives, Madina, reported that he was in a coma and near death at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She pleaded with Ugandan President Museveni to allow him to return to Uganda for the remainder of his life. President Museveni replied that the former dictator would have to answer for his alleged sins. Amin died in Saudi Arabia on August 16, 2003 and was buried in Ruwais Cemetery in Jeddah.
Prof. Yusuf Lule (1912 - January 21, 1985)
He is the former president known for two things: He ruled for only two months between April 13 and June 20, 1979. Besides this misfortune, he also died just before the NRA, with whom his Uganda Freedom Fighters fought alongside, came to power in 1986. Lule was the leader of the Uganda National Liberation Front and was installed as President after Amin was toppled. In June 1979, following a dispute over the extent of presidential powers, the NCC replaced Lule with Binaisa. Out of office, he led UFF, a resistance group which joined with Yoweri Museveni’s Popular Resistance Army (PRA) in 1981. The two groups combined to form the National Resistance Army (NRA). Lule did not live to witness the victory because he had died in 1985 of kidney failure.
Sir Edward Mutesa II (November 19, 1924 - November 21, 1969)
He was Kabaka of Buganda Buganda from November 22, 1939 until his death. He was the 35th Kabaka of Buganda and the first President of Uganda. Mutesa was exiled by British Governor Sir Andrew Cohen in 1953 after he opposed the unification of British East Africa which composed of Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika.
After two years in exile, Mutesa was allowed to return to the throne under a negotiated settlement which made him a constitutional monarch and gave the Baganda the right to elect representatives to the kingdom’s parliament, the Lukiiko. Under the country’s new constitution, Buganda was a semi-autonomous part of a federation. The federal Prime Minister was Obote, leader of the Uganda People’s Congress, which was in a governing coalition with the dominant Buganda regional party, Kabaka Yekka. The post of governor general was abolished in 1963 and replaced by a non-executive president, a post that Mutesa held.
The coalition between Mutesa and Obote’s parties collapsed after the 1964 referendum which transferred two counties (Buyaga and Bugangazi) from Buganda to Bunyoro. This ended in a bitter war with Obote raiding the king’s palace and exiling Mutesa. Mutesa died of alcohol poisoning in his London flat in 1969. Mutesa’s body was returned to Uganda in 1971 after the overthrow of Obote. He was given a state funeral at Kasubi Nabulagala.

506091
Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa, a lawyer, former President and Attorney General in the post independent government, died yesterday in Kampala, Fred Guweddeko writes about his life;
The late Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa was President of Uganda from July 1979 to May 1980.
He was born on May 30, 1920 in Mityana, where his father was the headmaster of the Church of Uganda Mityana Central School.
His father Canon Anania Jjuuko Binaisa [1892-1999], descended from Ssekabaka Kikulwe, the 23rd King of Buganda. Thus though very unpopular with the culturally monarchical Baganda for his role in destroying Buganda Kingdom in I966, Binaisa was of the Royal Clan.
Canon Binaisa was born at Kiwumu in the Bukoba District of Tanzania where his parents had fled the 1898-90 religious wars in Buganda. This history led to his son, [President] Binaisa in 1979-80 being labelled a Tanzanian. Canon Binaisa was an Anglican Christian Missionary, working for Gods’ Ministry. As Canon Binaisa was a missionary, his wife, Naome Nantume Manyangwa [1897-1985] was the income-earner head of the household.
Binaisa and his father
The life of the late Godfrey Binaisa was characterised by rejection, contradiction and conflict with the poverty, ethics, social and political values of his fathers’ missionary calling in the Anglican Church.
Because of the poverty in the missionaries’ home, the late Binaisa being the first-born helped his mother in commercial cash crop agriculture from the age of eight. By 13 years [1932], Binaisa was already making surplus money for all family school fees and other needs.
Besides organising migrant labour in cotton farming, young Binaisa earned a lot more money from selling cotton and buying products like kerosene from Indian traders.
Natives were short-changed in selling to and buying from Indians but the young Binaisa was so clever that he somehow received more money and bought more goods from the Indians. For a fee, natives would use young Binaisa to sell and buy for them from Indian traders. Canon Binaisa demanded his son be a ‘Good Samaritan’ and provide these ‘commercial’ services free. On learning that his son somehow cheated Indian traders, Canon Binaisa was enraged.
As Binaisa grew, the contradictions with his father extended to life-style, religion, economic ethics, etc, and finally to politics. In Junior secondary school, the late Binaisa made money by using migrant labourers and natives to find rare live animals, birds, etc, which he sold to Europeans. He bought several ‘luxury’ shoes, shorts, bicycle, etc, to the annoyance of his father. At Makerere, Binaisa riled his religious father by joining the Radical Scientific Society that sought scientific explanations, challenged religion and advocated secularism.
Because of the association of his son with the 1946-49 Bataka Movement, and his betrayal of the leadership, Canon Binaisa lost family and church property to the arson acts of the nationalists. His son initially plotted with the anti-colonial protest groups but switched to the side of the Colonial Government. In independence politics, Binaisa greatly embarrassed his father, a priest by joining the Uganda National Congress (UNC) that was associated with anti-religion communist tendencies.
When Canon Binaisa retired after 50 years in church service in 1963, he offered to save Buganda from an impending crisis under the Kabaka Yekka Movement by serving as Chaplain of the Mengo government.
During this same period [1963-66], his son Godfrey Binaisa was the leader of the Baganda on the UPC side that were fighting against Mengo. In the battle between Mengo and the UPC government, father and son fought on opposite sides. When Idi Amin overthrew Milton Obote in 1971, angry Baganda looking for Binaisa severely beat Canon Binaisa and destroyed his property for being a parent.
Under Amins’ rule, Canon Binaisa spent a year in hiding fearing for his life after security agents killed the father of Sheik Kamulegeya. Whenever Amin complained about Binaisa, the father who had changed to the name of Jjuko went into hiding. Since Amin had given wealth to Baganda traders under the economic war, none of them even within the CoU wanted to associate with Canon Binaisa and yet the father was never on good terms with his son.
When in 1979, his son became President of Uganda against popular feelings and the midst of violence, Canon Binaisa declined to bless this achievement. Canon Binaisa said his son should not have accepted to be the dumping place for a stolen Presidency. This was not the end, Canon Binaisa who had since 1972 entirely committed his life to establishing the CoU at Kamwokya in Kampala, was shunned by the congregation because he was father to the unpopular President Binaisa.
The only request that Canon Binaisa made to President Binaisa was to allocate Dairy Corporation powder milk for CoU purposes.
However, President Binaisas’ chit to the Dairy Corporation was ignored. To the embarrassment of Canon Binaisa, the chit from the son to issue milk to the father was exhibited in the NCC [Parliament] as evidence of family corruption in a ‘no confidence’ motion. Unlike other parents, Canon Binaisa and his son were never harmonised.
The late Godfrey Binaisa attended Non-grade, Elementary at Nateete CoU School and ‘Middle’ school [1927-1932] in Mackay Memorial, both at Nateete in the present Lubaga Division in Kampala District. During this period, the belief was that it was inhuman to hoard young children in a room for teaching and thus the norm was for Non-grade and Elementary classes to be held under trees.
Education
Binaisa joined Budo Junior [1933-36] [now Kings College] for Intermediate and Junior Secondary education. In his pre-college education, Binaisa holds a fantastic achievement of skipping three years/classes through the ‘Express’ exams process. This is where for instance a senior three student can sit O-level exams and proceed to A-level upon passing.
Binaisa joined Makerere College in 1937 for Cambridge [1937-38] and Medicine [1939-40] when he was dismissed. At Makerere College, Binaisa shared a room in Sejoongo House with Jaramogi A Oginga-Odinga, from Kenya, with whom they became the ‘ideological factories’ of Makerere.
Binaisa was for ‘Radical Science’ and Oginga-Odinga for ‘Liberal Arts’. On the intellectual side, Binaisa won the ‘Research Cup’ in 1938 for advances in science research.
In 1939, Binaisa received the ‘Forster Prize’ for his scientific findings on swamp worms. In the same year, Binaisa discovered worm specie outside existing entomological taxonomy. The ‘Thesis’ was submitted to Cambridge University.
The problem for Binaisa was that by 1939, the colonial law did not allow Uganda natives to be awarded university degrees. Binaisa could not be considered for a doctorate.
In student adventure, Binaisa spent the 1937 holiday in Buganda Singo County prison upon conviction under the then Native law preventing boys over 16 years from remaining in school to avoid graduated tax.
This case caused issuing of student ‘Identity’ cards at Makerere. These identity cards posed a colonial policy problem that recognised natives only under their tribes and not any other identity.
Binaisa was the richest student at Makerere as he sold rare animal skins to European collectors. Binaisas’ large collection of stuffed animals, skins and skeletons without a licence was seized by the authorities in 1938. They were given to Makerere College and became the foundation for the current Uganda Museum.
When World War II broke out, a war public information office was located at Makerere and the students received one of the first radio sets in Uganda for official British war news.
Students including Binaisa tampered with the radio and secretly monitored German war information news deep in the time. It happened that in 1940, German was winning the war. Binaisa engaged in counteracting official British war news with the truths. He was dismissed at the end of 1940 for, according to him, supporting German in the war.

506090
Godfrey Lukongwa Binaisa, the last surviving former Ugandan head of state died at his home in Kampala yesterday. He was 90. Mr Binaisa, who famously declared that the chair (power) is sweet, with the statement: Entebbe ewooma, during his 11month reign as President, died peacefully in his bed, family sources said yesterday.
“We are gutted and really depressed,” said Ms Nakalema Binaisa, a daughter to the former President. Visibly distraught by the death, Ms Nakalema struggled to hold back tears in an interview with this newspaper.
“We went to the hospital on Monday but we were told that his blood sugar levels had stabilised,” she said. “We went back home and he seemed alright. His nurse went to check on him before he went to sleep and he was smiling last night [Wednesday].
This morning [yesterday] at 6am she went to wake him for his bath but he did not wake up.” His body was taken to the Mulago Hospital yesterday morning for a post-mortem examination. Ms Nakalema said her father’s physicians suspect the former leader could have died due to a cardiac arrest.
“His heart just stopped beating,” she said. “He was always with us, happy and we had so many plans. He was a fabulous human being; we are so gutted.”
Arrangements are under way for a state funeral for the former leader. Officials at the Office of the President and the Prime Minister’s Office are coordinating burial arrangements, the government said.
Mr Binaisa is said to have been battling diabetes before his death. The former leader was in poor health after he suffered a stroke in 2008 which kept him bedridden in a Nairobi hospital for more than a month. His subsequent appearances in public became limited.
A nephew to the former leader, Mr Martin Lwanga, told reporters at the Media Centre that Mr Binaisa had not been in good health for the past year.
“... and given his age, you can understand the circumstances,” he said.
Last wish
It also emerged that the former president had left a wish list detailing where he would like to be buried, a request that Mr Lwanga said had been handed to the government.
Daily Monitor understands that Mr Binaisa’s last wish was a desire to be buried at the Kololo ceremonial grounds, next to the resting place of Ignatius Kangave Musaazi, founder of Uganda’s first political party, the Uganda National Congress.
“Musaazi was his mentor and it is he who brought daddy into politics,” said Ms Nakalema.
As news of his death spread, condolence messages began trickling in. The government hastily arranged a press briefing at the Media Centre in Kampala where journalists were told that President Museveni had been informed about Binaisa’s death and expressed sadness.
“President Museveni on behalf of the government of Uganda conveys condolences to the family, relatives and friends,” said Media Centre director Fred Opolot.
In Parliament, Deputy Speaker Rebecca Kadaga broke news of his death and led the House to observe a minute of silence in honour of the former president. She said details relating to his burial and official mourning ceremony would be “communicated by government following consultations with relatives.”
Mr Binaisa is survived by seven children; three boys and four girls, plus four grand children and a great grand child.

20100808
This Day

Abuja — The Independent National Electoral Commission yesterday said it will engage 360,000 personnel for the compilation of the voters register for the 2011 general election.

20100808
CISA

Amnesty International has condemned attacks on politicians and journalists in the run up to the presidential election on August 9.

20100808
UN News

The actress and humanitarian activist Mia Farrow is set to give evidence on Monday about blood diamonds that are the current focus of testimony at the ongoing trial of the former Liberian president Charles Taylor at a United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal.

20100808
Vanguard

Abuja — The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said it would issue next week the guidelines for the forthcoming 2011 general elections even as it revealed that about 360,000 personnel would be recruited for the exercise.

20100808
Monitor

Kampala — The opposition yesterday announced plans to stage what they called a nation-wide protracted peoples' protests against the Electoral Commission despite an existing police order against holding demonstrations.

20100806
reuters

Johannesburg — THE Department of Mineral Resources will be taken urgently to court by Lonmin after the world's third-largest platinum miner was forbidden from selling associated minerals from its mines with immediate effect.

20100806
Nation

Accra — After 18 years of successful multi-party democracy, Ghanaians are bracing themselves to review the Fourth Republican Constitution.

20100806
IPS

Subsidies for agriculture in the industrialised countries of the world grew again in 2009, benefiting the largest companies and land owners, such as Prince Albert of Monaco and Queen Elizabeth of Britain.

20100806
reuters

Responding to Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos's call for a zero-tolerance policy on corruption on 21 November 2009, Rafael Marques de Morais reports on the business dealings of three figures representing a 'triumvirate that today dominates Angola's political economy': General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa", General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento "Dino" and Manuel Vicente.

20100806
Nation

Relaxed and jovial, Mr Odinga used the period before the formal interview to talk candidly about the period leading up to the head operation that sidelined him from the campaign trail.

20100806
reuters

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Resurgent coffee sales and diversification into other products lifted Ethiopia's exports to a record $2 billion in 2009/2010 from $1.5 billion in the previous year, the trade ministry told Reuters on Friday.

20100806
reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - More than a million South African public sector workers plan to strike on Tuesday and demonstrate throughout the country in what could be a prelude to prolonged industrial action in Africa's largest economy.

20100806
africanews

Eighteen Tanzanian children drowned when their crowded boat capsized in strong winds on Lake Victoria, a regional official said on Friday. Thirty seven people were on board the small boat when it sank on Thursday in Africa's largest lake.

20100806
africanews

South Africa has recalled its ambassador to Rwanda following a diplomatic row over the shooting of an exiled Rwandan general in Johannesburg. Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, was shot and wounded in June. SA said it had not broken diplomatic ties and no connection was being made between the ambassador's withdrawal and the shooting.

20100806
africanews

The date for long-delayed presidential elections in Ivory Coast has been set for 31 October, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro has said. A rebellion lead by Soro split the country in half in 2002 and polls are seen as a vital step to end the crisis. Soro joined a unity government in 2007, but the peace process has been dogged by delays.

20100805
africanews

he French government through the French Development Agency is sponsoring the execution of development projects totalling 200 million Euros throughout the West African Nation of Ghana.