[2] When Njoya was born, the Kingdom of Bamum was in external conflict with the Fulani and internal division amongst the royal family.

[3] Njoya descended from a very long dynastic line that goes back to Mfon Ncharé who founded Bamum in the year 1394.

Yen was a direct descendant of Prince Mbum of Ngan Ha as well as Essedi, a merchant who according to Njoya's historical written testimony was an Egyptian.

[4][5][6] Genealogical analysis shows that Essedi the patriarch of Bamum was the great grandson of Ajara who is the founder of the Mandara lineage.

[4] Numerous scholars have interpreted this literary narrative as a historical inference speaking to the roots of the Bamum and Tikar along the Nile River in what is now Sudan.

[8] A study by Bird et al which analyzed Central African populations shows that the Bamun and the Bamileke have the lowest inferred within-group IBD sharing.

In two other sources such as Images from Bamum German Colonial Photography at the Court of King Njoya, Cameroon, West Africa, 1902-1915 by Christraud M. Geary as well as a text by Kristian Kristiansen and Michael Rowlands cite that he had 1200 wives and concubines and 350 children in total.

This claim originated from German colonial officials who sought to incriminate Manga Bell for resisting their attempts to seize Duala land.

This put Njoya in the Kaiser's favor, and enabled Felix von Luschan, director of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology, to exhibit the throne, which had been imprinted with dyed pearls in great skill.

Col. Gorges noted in 1914 that he held court or durbar daily outside the gatehouse for the dispensing of justice and receipt of tribute, and that all his people had access to him.

[10][page needed] There was a very well-defined code of court etiquette observed:[17]"Any courtier wishing to speak to him assumes a cringing attitude, removes his skull-cap, clasps his hands and, taking a chukker round behind the presence, finally arrives at the royal elbow.

"According to historian Stephanie Michel the relationship between the Bamum and the Germans is complex and does not neatly fit into a simplistic Afrika-Europe, metropolis-periphery dichotomy.

[citation needed] Though the Germans were at the center of Njoya's diplomatic and political efforts from 1904-1909, Before and after he oriented himself towards the Fulbe and Islam.

Since Njoya resided in Foumban until 1931, despite his formal abolition by France, he had, in a de facto sense, still had assumed the role as the king.

Njoya was exposed to a variety of architectural and building traditions during his childhood and early years of reign from his own travels, encounters with external merchants as well as his reading of Ajami texts.

The problem with this assumption is that prominent indigenous elements are identified in the new structure such as encircling verandahs, deep eaves, carved wood posts, raffia palm formwork, and laterite clay bricks.

When the king wanted to give wine to the servants, he had it poured into the other pipe, and they came to fill their ndut (drinking vessel) without seeing the one doing the service.

During his early days as a ruler he had encountered many neighboring African peoples and witnessed the effects of colonization and illegal human trafficking in Africa.

Understanding this existential threat, at the turn of the 20th century he embarked on a mission to modernize the Lerewa picto phonographic glyphs into a syllabary to preserve the history of the Bamum.

Here Ideograms are made primary over pictograms and Left to right writing was mandated, resulting in an expansion of literary activity, numerous correspondences and property transactions.

The 5th iteration of the script Ri Nyi Fu Fen began a year after the development of the last stage and represents the last logographic step of the alphabet.

[5] In about 15 years through and 5 successive stages the end result was Akauku Mfemfe and this allowed the Bamum to produce maps, birth certificates, construction blue prints, administration documents, court acts, accountings and historical archives.