The Presidency has dismissed reports claiming that a photograph of President Bola Tinubu and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda released on Sunday was generated using artificial intelligence.
The clarification was made in a statement on Monday by Temitope Ajayi, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity.
According to Ajayi, the two leaders met in Paris, where they had lunch together before later joining President Emmanuel Macron of France for dinner.
The statement said claims suggesting the image was artificial were incorrect.
“The narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct,” the statement read.
“The Vanguard report and social media comments that followed are deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
“The picture is real and not AI-generated as claimed.
“Both President Kagame and President Tinubu met in Paris and had lunch together on Sunday.
“They both 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.”
The Presidency said the claims had created a false narrative around the meeting between the leaders and urged the media to verify facts before publishing.
