After Colonel Idi Amin's 1971 military coup, Sabuni quickly rose through the ranks and was made brigadier general and Minister of Industry.

Sabuni fled the country in 1979 after Amin's overthrow during the Uganda–Tanzania War, but was detained by Kenyan authorities and sent back to Uganda.

[2] In July 1976 he, in his capacity as Minister of Industry, led a delegation to Japan where they secured a deal with Honda to purchase vehicles for the Ugandan government.

[6] In 1979 during the Uganda–Tanzania War a combined force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan rebels invaded Uganda and approached the capital, Kampala.

Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen him in Mbale as late as 11 April, however, where he, Idi Amin, and other high-ranking officials allegedly plundered the African Textile Mills.

[8] He was arrested by local authorities in May after being indicted by the Kampala chief magistrate for murder[10] and extradited back to Uganda on 16 June.

According to journalist Anne Mugisa, Sabuni was released in Uganda but arrested and charged with breaking into and stealing from the African Textile Mills in Mbale.

[14] By 1990, he had joined a Ugandan rebel group operating in Zaire, the Former Uganda National Army (FUNA), and served as one of its leaders alongside Isaac Lumago and Abdulatif Tiyua.

[14] He later became chief of staff of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan Islamic fundamentalist rebel group, using the pseudonym "Al Hajji Osman".