Led by their patriarch, called NTEUH, the Bampel and Elephant clan of the Badwee ethnic group, part of the larger Koozime tribe (made of the Ndjémé, Zimé and Koozimé) belonging to the Maka-Ndjem Western Bantu lineage first of all settled 15 km to the north of their present location, on a place called Bifolone, then at Mpoulabizame and afterward at Mpele, under the now leadership of Ndjankoum, son of Nteuh.

Moving many times from Bilofone, he was established at Mpe’ezi, along the river Dja, between the present day cities of Lomié and Bengbis, in the Eastern and Southern Regions.

The German head of the mission asked the Chief of Mpe’ezi to build a tree dug canoe that would enable him to navigate along the near Dja River.

On the bank of the river, he noticed a long, clear space at the end of which stood a straight small tree of the type locally called «lomo».

He asked his local team member how that was said in his language at that one translated was they saw as «Zohomalomo», meaning the clear space at the end of which stands a small lomo tree».

It was the first sub-administrative unit to be created within the Messaména Subdivision, which was itself set up by the French in 1935, at the crossroad of the Badwee and Bikélé tribes which make up the social fabric of the area.

The German Empire even though at that time to erect Somalomo into an administrative unit and a town, owing to its position on the Dja River, linked it to Lomié where they were already installed and Bengbis, Sangmelima and Ebolowa, toward the Atlantic Ocean, in Kribi.

During that time and since German authorities applied a scorched earth policy, burning whatever valuable project they had previously launched or any asset in their way, people reverted to living in the bush to protect themselves, and stayed there for four years, before their Paramount Chief Mampomo-mo-Ndjankoum called them back, announcing the end of the war.

With the French administration established under a Society of Nations mandate, the project to raise Somalomo into an urban centre was back to the drawing table.

However and since after the departure of the previous German colonial masters, Mr. Mampomo had firmly secured his power and possessed a harem of 99 wives; he was now more reluctant to go with it, under the motive that new city dwellers may be tempted to share some of them with him.

Between 1951 and 1959, heads of Messaména Subdivision Health Services regularly came to Somalomo, from where they could provide preventive and curative cares to people of the surrounding areas and villages.

Unfortunately once again, Somalomo missed the opportunity to become an urban centre under the French colonial period, since Mampomo lost his paramount chief position to his better educated nephew, and changing circumstances.

After independence was granted to Cameroon, Chief Mampomo continued petitioning the new national authorities about the urban issue for Somalomo, taking from the efforts and promises by the French colonial administration.

From the 1960s until 1992, Somalomo and the surrounding area and people did not benefit from a lot of public infrastructures, apart from a school which, up to the 80, delivered courses only midway toward the completion of a primary level education.

This is due to constant bickering with Dimpam people, who did not take the establishment of Somalomo as a town to their detriment lightly, as relations between the two places amply, show.