‘It was taken with phone’ – Presidency accepts using AI to edit Tinubu’s photo with Paul Kagame

The Presidency has dismissed claims that a photograph of President Bola Tinubu and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, taken in Paris, was generated using artificial intelligence.

Recall that the image, which emerged from President Tinubu’s reported meeting with Kagame in Paris, sparked online debate after social media users noticed a Grok watermark on the photograph.

However, in a statement issued on Monday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, described the claims as a “misrepresentation of facts.”

According to the statement, “the picture is real and not AI-generated as claimed.”

Ajayi explained that President Tinubu and President Kagame met in Paris on Sunday, where they had lunch together. He added that both leaders later had dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron the same evening.

“The picture was taken with a phone and obviously had poor quality,” the statement said.

He, however, acknowledged that the photographer later used Grok to enhance the image quality.