1. Jean-Marie Seroney was a Kenyan human rights advocate, legislator, and an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.
84 Facts About Jean-Marie Seroney
1. 2.
Jean-Marie Seroney was detained as a prisoner of conscience for 1,155 days.
3.
Jean-Marie Seroney brought in the first private member's bill to help ensure that Kenya's elections were free, fair, and inclusive.
4.
Jean-Marie Seroney made powerful enemies, and his detention in harsh prison conditions for three and a half years set in motion the events that eventually led to his death.
5.
Jean-Marie Seroney was born Eric Kipketer Seroney on Monday, 25 July 1927 at Kapsabet, Nandi District of Kenya.
6.
Jean-Marie Seroney immediately sent Reuben Seroney to start a new Mission station and school at Surungai some 32 miles north of the Kapsabet Mission.
7.
Reuben Jean-Marie Seroney stayed at Kapsowar as an evangelist and the lead teacher of the school for five years.
8.
Jean-Marie Seroney visited nearby villages and far-off areas teaching and preaching.
9.
Jean-Marie Seroney became Moi's teacher and mentor and was instrumental in placing him at Government African School Kapsabet in 1938.
10.
The young Jean-Marie Seroney began formal schooling in 1935 at Kapsowar with his father and Mrs Reynolds as his instructors.
11.
Jean-Marie Seroney passed his Primary School Examination and was the only one in his class to be admitted to the Alliance High School in Kikuyu which was then Kenya's only secondary school.
12.
Jean-Marie Seroney obtained a scholarship from the Local Native Council at Kapsabet which paid for him the required Sh.
13.
Jean-Marie Seroney stayed at Alliance from 1941 to 1944, where he studied under Edward Carey Francis.
14.
Jean-Marie Seroney sat for the Cambridge School Certificate and obtained a Division 1, which meant he could then proceed to Makerere for higher studies.
15.
Jean-Marie Seroney enrolled at the Makerere College in Kampala, Uganda in 1945 taking the Higher Studies in Arts.
16.
Jean-Marie Seroney was the founding President of the Political Society and served as the president of the Dramatic Society in his final year.
17.
Jean-Marie Seroney began his studies there in September 1947 at the William Holland University College, a constituent college of the University of Allahabad.
18.
Jean-Marie Seroney completed his BA degree in 1949 obtaining a Second-class Honours, Upper Division.
19.
Jean-Marie Seroney became the first Kenyan to hold a law degree.
20.
In 1938, Reuben Seroney had a serious misunderstanding with outgoing missionary Stuart M Bryson and his replacement Reginald V Reynolds.
21.
Reuben Jean-Marie Seroney disagreed with them over Nandi cultural practices that the AIM church continued to strongly oppose as well as the failure of the organization to grant him pastoral authority.
22.
Jean-Marie Seroney left the AIM and joined the Native Anglican Church.
23.
Reuben Jean-Marie Seroney moved shortly after his return from Kapsowar in 1939.
24.
Jean-Marie Seroney rose to become the first Vicar of Nandi in 1950 but died in a road accident on 12 April 1954.
25.
Jean-Marie Seroney was survived by his wife Rebecca and their twelve children, Jean-Marie, Grace, David, Walter, Graham, Richard, Jean, Agnes, Christine, Tom, Eunice, and Levi.
26.
The young Eric Jean-Marie Seroney was baptized an Anglican in 1944 but fell out with his own father in the matter of religion while attending Makerere College in 1946 where he became a Roman Catholic.
27.
Jean-Marie Seroney later Francized and hyphenated the name to Jean-Marie Seroney, dropping the active use of 'Therese'.
28.
Jean-Marie Seroney remained a practicing Catholic the remainder of his life devoted to St Therese, even choosing to remain celibate.
29.
Jean-Marie Seroney addressed public meetings in the African quarter in Nairobi and once accompanied Jomo Kenyatta on a tour of the Rift Valley.
30.
Jean-Marie Seroney made history as only the third Kenyan to become a barrister after Chiedo More Gem Argwings-Kodhek and Charles Njonjo, and the first to hold a law degree.
31.
Jean-Marie Seroney returned to Kenya fully qualified to practice law as a barrister before Her Majesty's High Courts.
32.
On his return to Kenya in 1956, Jean-Marie Seroney was appointed as a legal assistant in the office of the Registrar-General on 21 June 1956.
33.
Jean-Marie Seroney had made history as the second black Kenyan African to qualify in law after the late Chiedo More Gem Argwings-Kodhek.
34.
Jean-Marie Seroney continued with covert political activities at the height of Kenya's emergency period in the fifties engaging with many of the early politicians such as Tom Mboya, Oginga Odinga, Dr Julius Kiano and many others.
35.
Jean-Marie Seroney even joined Mboya's Airlift program and is known to have helped some Nandi youth to go to America to obtain a higher education.
36.
Jean-Marie Seroney joined the Labour movement and became the secretary-general of the Kenya African Civil Servants Union.
37.
Jean-Marie Seroney gave legal advice and supported the Independence movement in many ways.
38.
Jean-Marie Seroney was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Defence.
39.
Jean-Marie Seroney crossed the floor and joined the Kenya African National Union together with Taita araap Towett the MP for Bureti and William Murgor the MP for Elgeyo on 21 November 1963.
40.
Jean-Marie Seroney was elected MP for Tinderet in 1966 and served until the elections held in 1969.
41.
The document was deemed seditious and Jean-Marie Seroney was arrested on Saturday, 20 September 1969 at Eldoret and transported to Nakuru with his friend Mitei.
42.
Jean-Marie Seroney was however quite popular on the ground, much more popular than Moi, despite the latter being the vice president.
43.
Moi and Jean-Marie Seroney's differences took a turn when the latter decided to establish the Samoei Institute for Technology and Education in Nandi Hills.
44.
Moi used his control of the provincial administration to ensure that Jean-Marie Seroney did not get permits to hold rallies or collect funds for the institute; in the end, the institute was 'deregistered'.
45.
Jean-Marie Seroney won the seat despite vigorous opposition by no less than President Jomo Kenyatta who uncharacteristically adjourned Parliament for three months in a bid to prevent Seroney from being elected Deputy Speaker.
46.
When Parliament resumed on 5 February 1975 Jean-Marie Seroney was elected as the Deputy Speaker.
47.
Jean-Marie Seroney sat in the Committee formed to probe the death of Kariuki as its secretary and wrote a damning report accusing the Government of being behind his death and trying to cover it up.
48.
On 9 October 1975, Jean-Marie Seroney got in trouble again when as Deputy Speaker of Parliament after he refused to ask Martin Shikuku MP for Butere to substantiate his remark that "Kanu was dead".
49.
Jean-Marie Seroney was taken to Manyani Prison where he served in detention without trial for the next three years, losing his parliamentary seat in the process.
50.
Jean-Marie Seroney suffered terrible withdrawal symptoms from his addiction to tobacco but soon became stable.
51.
Jean-Marie Seroney lived in Nairobi's South 'B' area in a City Council house.
52.
Jean-Marie Seroney was released from detention through a presidential pardon on 12 December 1978.
53.
Jean-Marie Seroney was released with 25 other prisoners, most of whom were prisoners of conscience.
54.
Jean-Marie Seroney had spent 1,155 days in detention without trial, becoming one of Kenya's longest prisoners of conscience.
55.
Jean-Marie Seroney reportedly said that if there were only a few others like Seroney, this nation would be very different.
56.
Jean-Marie Seroney was introduced to the gathering of Tinderet constituents at Kabarak as the man for the upcoming elections of 1979.
57.
The indefatigable efforts of Ezekiel Barngetuny The election symbol for Kosgey, Ngeny, and Metto was the Key which was partially to spite Jean-Marie Seroney for having 'locked' away or closed development in Nandi.
58.
Jean-Marie Seroney had been physically harassed, beaten, and even denied permits to hold public rallies and where he did, they were disrupted.
59.
Burrows the proprietor of Ogirgir Tea estate who found a mob of rowdy youth that had captured Jean-Marie Seroney, roughed him up, spat on him all over, soiled him and mocked him in public as he was on the campaign trail.
60.
Jean-Marie Seroney whisked Seroney to the safety of his car together with Burrows and drove him off to safety.
61.
In 1975, Jean-Marie Seroney purchased 1,546 acres of former Kapkures Sisal Estates in his Tinderet Constituency.
62.
Jean-Marie Seroney renamed it 'Kibois Farm' which was in turn owned by the Kaprotuk Estates Ltd of which he was a majority shareholder.
63.
Jean-Marie Seroney took a loan of KSh 1,035,000 from the Standard Chartered Bank and the National Bank of Kenya to finance the acquisition.
64.
Jean-Marie Seroney's farming deteriorated significantly and Seroney was unable to service his huge loan.
65.
Jean-Marie Seroney faced imminent foreclosure and desperately tried to seek the help of the Government to at least waive off his interest for the time he was in detention now that he had not been tried and found guilty of any offense.
66.
Jean-Marie Seroney's pleas fell on deaf ears leading him deep into a state of depression and turning him deep into alcoholism.
67.
Jean-Marie Seroney worked with Dr Julius Gikonyo Kiano his longtime friend and one-time Member of Parliament and Cabinet Minister.
68.
Jean-Marie Seroney had been unwell for a number of days, avoiding going to the hospital.
69.
Jean-Marie Seroney spent 5 days in the general ward and was due to be discharged on Friday of that week.
70.
Jean-Marie Seroney was taken to ICU on Saturday where was put under further treatment when his condition worsened.
71.
Jean-Marie Seroney died just 6 days shy of the fourth anniversary of his release.
72.
Jean-Marie Seroney's funeral was held on 13 December 1982 in a ceremony that was attended by President Moi and thousands of his friends and constituents at Ko'lelach Village, Senetwo Village, Meteitei, Tinderet.
73.
Jean-Marie Seroney's former house is a school and his grave is a part of the playground.
74.
Jean-Marie Seroney is a hero of Kenya's independence for which he worked tirelessly from as early as 1950.
75.
Jean-Marie Seroney offered valuable legal advice to Tom Mboya during the pre-independence period and helped many Mau Mau victims find legal help.
76.
Jean-Marie Seroney helped champion social justice, the rule of law, and democracy through much of the early independence years of Kenya.
77.
In 1969 Jean-Marie Seroney is on record as having called for the release from detention of Oginga Odinga following his detention after the Kisumu riots.
78.
Jean-Marie Seroney called for the Government to clear Odinga and members of his Party the Kenya People's Union before the elections and to end the practice of detention without trial.
79.
Jean-Marie Seroney vigorously opposed attempts to make Kenya a single-party state strongly rooting for pluralism and political tolerance as well as national cohesion with the presence of active parliamentary opposition to check government.
80.
Jean-Marie Seroney championed press freedom famously calling for a 'free, frank and fearless' press in Kenya.
81.
Jean-Marie Seroney became the first private individual to sponsor a bill that he drafted single-handedly to try and rectify the problems associated with the Kenyan elections.
82.
Jean-Marie Seroney vigorously fought against Corruption in the Kenyatta and Moi Administrations and helped Martin Shikuku come up with a Bill to fight the vice in Kenya.
83.
Jean-Marie Seroney wanted to make parliament a truly independent organ of government and MPs independent servants of the people.
84.
Jean-Marie Seroney initiated various development projects in his Tinderet Constituency culminating with the Samoei Institute of Technical Education which although it was downgraded by Moi to a secondary school, it has since been elevated to the proposed Koitalel Samoei University College, a constituent college of the University of Nairobi.