In 1971 while Obote was attending the Commonwealth Conference in Singapore, Idi Amin, the head of the armed forces staged a coup d'etat. The ousted Obote went into exile in Tanzania. Amin changed the percentage of government ownership from 60% to 49% giving back majority control to the private sector.

However the worst consequence of the British immigration policy, occurred in Uganda. In August 1972, General Idi Amin on being refused British financial aid ordered all the Indians (who were predominantly British Nationals) out of the country. Even those Indians who had opted for Ugandan nationality at independence were given 90 days to leave Uganda. Most abandoned all their possessions. The majority, approximately 27,000 went to Britain. Others were taken in mainly by Canada and the USA as refugees. Some reclaimed their Indian nationality and returned to India. Most left Uganda with little money and few belongings and had to start life all over again.

In Uganda, however, the mass expulsion of the Indians led to a sudden loss of business expertise, professional skills and administrative capacity. In 90 days over 50,000 people were expelled, the entire middle section of the economy was lost. This ultimately led to a collapse of the entire economy, a period of serious economic decline and economic hardship for Africans Ugandans. In the years from 1972 to 1985 Uganda went from being one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to the one of the poorest with all the social, health and economic indicators in decline. Diseases that had been eradicated in the 1930s re-appeared, the entire education and health system collapsed and African parents reverted to running their own schools. The majority of Africans survived because most of the land in Uganda is fertile and this permitted a return to subsistence farming.

In February 1979 Idi Amin was overthrown with military assistance of Tanzania and was succeeded by three stopgap leaders. In 1985 President Yoweri Museveni came to power and he invited the Indians to return to Uganda to share in the task of rehabilitating the country's ravaged economy. He took the courageous decision to return the property they had lost in 1972, an action unmatched by many countries in Europe after World War II. This was the turning point in Uganda's economic fortune as it coincided with increased economic aid from international donors, both multilateral and bilateral.

‘The rehabilitation of Uganda began in 1985 after 14 years of destruction and killing by Idi Amin. It was a long road back. The entire national infrastructure – government, ministries, the economy, roads, telecommunications etc. – had to be rebuilt. Today Uganda has regained its identity and place among African nations.