At the age of twenty nine, he inherited the famous Bamun throne , founded in the sixteenth century. He was chosen, by the kingdom's council of wisemen, among one hundred and seventy seven of his father's children , the famous Sultan Njoya.

His father, an enlightened soverain, spent twelve years to invent his own alphabet, made of eighty symbols. He wanted to be able to write in the Bamun language the kingdom's history. At this time, the oral tradition dominated.

The Sultan Njoya is known to have said to his subjects: "I will give you a book that talks without any sound". He even established schools to teach his language. Njoya revolutionized agriculture by introducing European plants, unknown to Africa. He instituted the beginnings of a civil state through a system of birth and death certificates, built a blast furnace, and founded a religion, the "Novat Kovot".

In 1913, while Cameroun was still a German colony, Sultan Njoya equiped himself with his own printing house.