After a raucous deportation during the rule of former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, the return of exiled Indo-Pakistanis has a touch of historical irony.
On 4 August, 1972, Dictator Idi Amin gave some 60,000 Indians and Pakistanis living in Uganda a 90-day ultimatum to pack-up and leave, allowing them to leave with only one suitcase and 10 percent of whatever they had in their bank accounts.
This populist political move thundered an ambient racist conscience that reigned supreme among indigenous Ugandans and those of Asian descent - who had been bused into the East African country by the then colonial British masters to work in agriculture, housing projects, railway construction, among others.
Forced into exile, many of the deported Ugandan-Asians moved to the United Kingdom, Canada, India and the neighbouring Kenya.
About 6,000 Ugandan-Asian owned shops and businesses were reallocated to indigenous Ugandan nationals.
The mass deportation of its Asian community proved catastrophic for Uganda's young economy. And diplomatic relations fell into the doldrums.
After the fall of the "Last King of Scotland" in 1979, the exiled Indian and Pakistani communities accepted an open invitation from President Yoweri Museveni to return and invest in Uganda. A move that has re-written some stories.
Sudhir Ruparelia, a 57-year-old former taxi-cab driver in London, where his parents had fled, is now the richest man in East Africa. He is number 18 on Africa's rich list, according to Forbes magazine.
With about 670 million euros to his name, Ruparelia owns Crane Bank, Rosebud (a flower export company), a chain of hotels and a number of businesses.
But Ruparelia is not the only Indo-Pakistani Ugandan to have registered great success upon return to the country.
The Mayur Madhvani family, who returned to their home country in 1985, has also joined the league of the continent's millionaires.
The 200 million euro-rich Mayur Madhvani Group is very present in the electricity, insurance, sugar, tea, tourism and horticulture industries.
This success story is not a Ugandan exception. 62-year-old Kenyan, Naushad Merali, of Indo-Pakistan descent, according to Forbes, is the 39th richest African (305 million euros).
Merali got into the international spotlight in 2004 when he acquired a 60 percent stake in the French group Vivendi's Kencell for 169 million euros, selling it an hour later to Celtel for 183 million.
Having amassed a fortune of about a billion euros, the richest Indo-Pakistanis in the United Kingdom, the brothers Jatania (Lornamead group, cosmetics), are from Uganda. Such goes the irony.
