Kagame and Tinubu’s picture not AI-Generated — Presidency

The Presidency has rejected claims that a photograph of President Bola Tinubu with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, released on Sunday, was created using artificial intelligence.

The clarification came on Monday in a statement by Temitope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity.

Ajayi confirmed that the two leaders met in Paris, where they had lunch together before later joining French President Emmanuel Macron for dinner. He described reports suggesting the image was AI-generated as inaccurate.

“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.

“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 later had dinner with President Macron the same evening. The picture was taken with a phone and naturally had poor quality. The photographer only later used Grok to enhance the image quality, which is not a reason to conclude it was AI-generated. The writer or editor should have asked questions before reaching this wrong conclusion.”

The Presidency noted that such claims have created a false narrative about the meeting and urged the media to verify facts before publication.