In this response, 1 I wish to use a sociological theory, labeling theory, to increase understanding of why some accused child witches admit and confess to being witches. The narrative of Sylvain and Pastor Jean in the report by Priest, Ngolo and Stabell (2020, 3-5, 11-13) are considered.Labelling theory was developed by Becker Howard (1963). It stipulates that the "behaviour of human beings is influenced significantly by the way other members in society label them" (Crossman 2019, np). This means that individuals act in accordance with the way that the society classifies or categorizes them. For instance, some people are labelled as wise, intelligent, foolish, lazy, or even as witches, and they tend to exhibit such behaviour. Society's positive labelling of an individual influences the exhibition of positive behaviour while negative label influences negative behaviour too. Interestingly, the label used to describe an individual may not necessarily describe the existing situation. However, with time, that label is realized.

In recent years a very rare phenomenon was observed in Igboland, Southeastern Nigeria—the conversion of the Igbo to Islam. There exists a significant scholarly work on the stages of conversion or conversion process among different people group; however, to the best of our knowledge, little exists on the Igbo conversion to Islam. This could be as a result of the phenomenon being a relatively recent development in Igboland, commencing in the second half of the twentieth century (Uchendu in Soc Sci J 47(1):172–188, 2010). This article seeks to discover the stages of Igbo conversion to Islam; that is, the systematic phases involved in their conversion process to Islam To accomplish this, ethnographic interviews were conducted with thirty (30) former Igbo Christians, all now converts to Islam. Gerlach and Hine's (People, power, change: movements of social transformation, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1970) stages of conversion theory were applied to this study, and the findings showed that Igbo converts to Islam underwent six stages in their conversion process to Islam. These are: “Initial contact with a practicing Muslim; focus of need through demonstration; re-education through group interaction; decision and surrender; commitment event; and group support for changed cognitive and behavioral patterns (consequence)”. The findings from this study reveal that tension and crisis do not often begin the stage of disaffiliating from one's original religion as some scholars claim. The study recommends that Igbo Christians should build strong ties with one another so that disaffiliation will not quickly occur.