The Presidency has dismissed claims that an artificial intelligence-generated photo of President Bola Tinubu and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda was taken in Paris, France.
Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, called the allegations and the social media criticism that followed a “misrepresentation of facts” in a statement released on Monday.
Ajayi maintained that the picture was authentic, stating that the two leaders had dinner together on Sunday while attending their engagements in Paris.
He said, “The narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct.”
He added, “Both 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.”
He said that the original phone photo’s poor quality, which was later improved with the Grok tool, was the root of the problem.
“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,” Ajayi said.
He criticized reports that implied differently, arguing that reporters ought to have checked the facts before publishing.
“The writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion,” he added.
