The Presidency has dismissed reports alleging that a photograph of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame released on Sunday was generated using artificial intelligence.
The clarification was made in a statement issued on Monday by Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity.
According to Ajayi, both leaders met in Paris, where they shared lunch before later joining French President Emmanuel Macron for dinner.
He described claims suggesting that the image was artificially generated as false and misleading.
“The narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct,” the statement said.
Ajayi accused some media reports and social media commentary of deliberately misrepresenting facts.
“The Vanguard report and social media comments that followed are deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
“The picture is real and not AI-generated as claimed,” he stated.
He further explained that the photograph was taken with a mobile phone, which affected its quality. According to him, the image was later enhanced using Grok solely to improve clarity, not to fabricate or manipulate the scene.
“Both President Kagame and President Tinubu met in Paris and had lunch together on Sunday.
“They both later had dinner with President Macron the same evening. The picture was taken on a phone and was obviously low quality.
“The photographer only later used Grok to improve the picture quality. That is not a reason to conclude it was AI-generated,” the statement added.
Ajayi criticised the publication for failing to verify the information before reaching a conclusion.
“The writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion,” he said.
The Presidency noted that the claims had created a false narrative around the meeting between the two leaders and urged media organisations to prioritise fact-checking and verification before publishing reports.
