The Presidency has debunked reports claiming that a photograph of President Bola Tinubu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame taken in Paris, France, was generated using artificial intelligence.\n<\/p>\n
In a statement issued on Monday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, described the reports and subsequent social media commentary as a \u201cmisrepresentation of facts.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Ajayi insisted that the photograph was genuine, explaining that both leaders met and shared meals on Sunday during their engagements in Paris.\n<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cThe narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cBoth President Kagame and President Tinubu met in Paris and had lunch together on Sunday. The two leaders later had dinner with President Macron the same evening.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
According to him, the controversy stemmed from the poor quality of the original phone photograph, which was later enhanced using the Grok tool.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Ajayi said.<\/p>\n
He criticised reports suggesting otherwise, saying journalists should have verified the information before publication.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion,\u201d he added.\n<\/p>\n
PUNCH Online had reported that a photograph released by the Presidency showing Tinubu in a meeting with the Rwandan President in Paris had drawn attention after users on X (formerly Twitter) flagged it as artificially generated. <\/p>\n
The image, which bore the watermark of Grok, an AI tool developed by Elon Musk\u2019s xAI company, circulated widely on social media on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
It showed Tinubu and Kagame seated together during what was described as a private engagement in the French capital.\n<\/p>\n
The photograph appeared on the President\u2019s official X handle, where Tinubu said the discussions centred on international developments and the future of the African continent.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis 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,\u201d the President wrote.<\/p>\n
His Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, also shared the same image, adding, \u201cPresident Bola Tinubu at a private lunch in Paris with the President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, discussing world affairs and advancing Africa. Sunday, January 4, 2026.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
However, a Community Note added to the President\u2019s post suggested the picture might not be authentic.\n<\/p>\n
It read, \u201cWhile a meeting between Mr Tinubu and President Kagame is reported to have been held in Paris, the image in this post appears to be AI-generated, given the GrokAI badge.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Grok, the AI system referenced, is capable of producing text, generating images, and running real-time online searches.\n<\/p>\n
The controversy has triggered conversations about the appropriateness of using AI-processed images in official government communications, particularly where international engagements are involved.\n<\/p>\n
Tinubu has been in Europe since December 28, having left Lagos for an end-of-year break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Presidency has debunked reports claiming that a photograph of President Bola Tinubu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-675730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115843352799978695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}