But even when he was left with his relatives and family for one week he firmly stood by his decision to die for his faith something that enthralled his fellow martyrs when they leant that he had managed to resist the pleas of his family and relatives to abandon the faith and live. By the end of that week the Martyrs who had been praying for him had almost given up but only to see the Tuzinde being returned for execution.

Mbaaga Tuzinde, a youth of about seventeen to eighteen at the time of his martyrdom, was known as the son of Mukajanga, the chief executioner, in whose household he was brought up and who presented him at Court.

Although they belonged to different clans, their grandfathers, Kikonyogo and Salasamba respectively had been very close friends and had made a blood-pact together. This had in effect made them brothers but because Mukaajanga was much older and had been entrusted with the task of bringing up the lad, Tuzinde took him as a father. This explains why Execution Chief Mukajanga repeatedly entreated Mbaaga Tuzinde, pleading desperately with the boy to renounce his religion.

Uganda Martyr Mbaga Tuzinde

However the seventeen-year-old boy, baptized that morning by Charles Lwanga, firmly rejected the offer. The executioner had no choice but to let the boy be tied up along with his Christian friends.  Mukaajanga was heartbroken and distraught at having to commit to the flames his obstinate but lovable son. Out of pity, to spare him suffering, on the day of execution he ordered his assistants to club the boy on the nape of the neck, and throw his lifeless body into the flames. They took him some little distance apart and did so, killing him instantly.

Mbaaga Tuzinde was born at Bunyonga in Busiro County. His real parents were Katamiza Waggumbulizi of the Lungfish (Mamba) Clan, who had ten wives, and Mmumanvi Bukuwa of the Yamfruit (Kkobe) Clan. His clan name was Tuzinde; the name Mbaaga being, in fact, a nickname which he acquired from his work at the Court.

He began his instructions in the Catholic faith when he became a page at the accession of Mwanga and was still a catechumen when the persecution broke out in May 1886. Charles Lwanga baptized him on the morning that the pages were arrested.