The Presidency has dismissed claims that an image circulating online of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame was generated using artificial intelligence.
The controversy followed the emergence of viral photos allegedly showing both leaders together in Paris. Social media users questioned the authenticity of the images after noticing a visible watermark linked to Grok, an AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, sparking speculation that the meeting itself may have been fabricated.
The issue gained further attention after the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, initially announced the meeting via a Facebook post, prompting widespread discussion and scrutiny.
In response, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, issued a statement on Monday firmly rejecting the AI-generated image claims. According to Ajayi, the photograph is genuine and was taken during an actual meeting between the two presidents.
He explained that President Tinubu and President Kagame met in Paris on Sunday, where they shared lunch before later attending a dinner engagement hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron that same evening. Ajayi clarified that the photo in question was captured using a mobile phone and appeared grainy due to poor lighting and quality.
He noted that the photographer later used Grok solely to enhance the image’s clarity, stressing that image enhancement should not be mistaken for artificial generation.
Ajayi described reports suggesting the image was fake as misleading and urged media outlets and commentators to verify facts before drawing conclusions.
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“The picture is real,” he emphasized, adding that the use of digital tools to improve image quality does not invalidate the authenticity of the moment captured.
