The presidency has debunked the narrative that the Photograph of President Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame of Rwanda shared by the former’s social handles was generated using Artificial Intelligence.
In a statement issued on Monday, Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity said such a claim “is not correct”.
Reacting to backlash from several social media users over the image, possibly taken during a lunch between the two leaders, Ajayi said Tinubu and Kagame indeed had lunch with their French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, January 4.
Recall that many users had condemned the president and his social media handlers for relying on the AI tool to share a photo from the lunch.
Tinubu had posted the image on X with the caption, “This afternoon, I had a private lunch with H. E. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda to discuss the current state of world affairs and advancing Africa in an ever-changing global landscape.”
Also, a community note from X said, “While a meeting between Mr Tinubu and President Kagame is reported to have held in Paris, the image in this post appears to be AI-generated given the GrokAI badge.”
However, in its defence, the presidency said, “The narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct.
“The media report and social media comments that followed are a misrepresentation of facts. The picture is real and not AI generated as claimed. Both President Kagame and President Tinubu met in Paris had lunch together on Sunday (yesterday).
“The two leaders later had dinner with President Macron same yesterday evening. The picture was taken with a phone and obviously had poor quality.
“The photographer only later used grok to improve the picture quality. That is not a reason to conclude it was AI generated.
The writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion,” Ajayi said in the statement.
