Who is Lieutenant-Colonel Zossoungbo Patrice from The Viceroy of Ouidah and what is their importance?

Lieutenant-Colonel Zossoungbo Patrice is a young officer in the Dahomean army who chastises the Da Silva family at the beginning of the book for gathering to commemorate the 117th anniversary of Dom Francisco's death. Patrice represents the revolutionary, Marxist-Leninist philosophy that dominates the Dahomean government in the mid-1970s. He criticizes the Da Silva gathering as a vestige of the fetishistic practices of the country's colonial period, but he allows it to continue after receiving a bribe, on the condition that they listen to the radio broadcast of the president's speech. He reappears at the end of the book, hearing the cries of the women in the Da Silva ancestral home when they realize that Mama Wéwé is dying.