A photograph capturing Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame in Paris proves genuine, the Presidency declared Monday, brushing off artificial intelligence conspiracy theories as false narratives peddled by unverified media and social media frenzy.
Shared initially by Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga on Facebook, the image sparked immediate backlash. Viewers flagged oddities in its composition blurry edges, inconsistent lighting labelling it a deepfake in an age where AI tools churn out convincing forgeries with ease, from viral political memes to hoax celebrity endorsements.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, countered forcefully in a statement.
“The narrative that the picture of Presidents Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI generated is not correct,” Ajayi said. “The media report and social media comments that followed are misrepresentations of facts.”
He outlined the authentic backdrop: the leaders lunched together in Paris on Sunday, then dined with French President Emmanuel Macron later that evening during an official engagement. Captured on a mobile phone, the photo’s initial fuzziness stemmed from the device, Ajayi explained. Post-capture tweaks via Grok sharpened it without fabricating reality.
“The picture is real and not AI generated as claimed. The photographer only later used Grok to improve the picture quality. That is not a reason to conclude it was AI generated,” he stated.
Ajayi rebuked the precipitous coverage. “The writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion,” he noted, while the Presidency called on journalists, editors, and citizens to verify before dissemination, lest they mislead the populace.
Nigeria’s brush with photo controversies runs deep, predating AI’s mainstream menace. In the 1993 annulled elections, doctored images of MKO Abiola rallies exaggerated support, fuelling chaos. The 2011 post-poll violence saw fabricated atrocity photos inflame ethnic divides, as documented by the Nigerian Communications Commission. Tinubu’s 2023 campaign weathered barrages of altered clips questioning his health, a trope recycled from Buhari’s 2015-2019 era when “Buhari is dead” memes relied on crude edits.
Africa’s timeline mirrors this: South Africa’s 2016 #FeesMustFall protests spawned fake casualty images; Sudan’s 2019 revolution battled regime deepfakes. Kagame’s Rwanda, post-1994 genocide, enforces draconian cyber laws its 2018 media policy bans “fake news” yet harbours innovation hubs like the 2020-launched Rwanda Coding Academy.
Tinubu’s Kagame encounter builds on his “4D Doctrine” of diplomacy, democracy, development, and demographics, articulated at the 2023 UN General Assembly. Prior links include a 2024 AU virtual huddle on food security, amid Nigeria’s naira redesign fallout and Rwanda’s post-COVID rebound. France’s venue choice harks to historic precedents: Mitterrand’s 1990 La Baule Declaration conditioned aid on multi-party democracy, reshaping post-colonial ties; Macron’s 2021 “reset” forum invited 54 African states, though boycotts by Burkina Faso and Mali signal fractures.
Grok’s role nods to AI’s double edge. xAI’s 2024 release empowers quick fixes but invites suspicion, akin to Adobe’s 2023 Content Credentials for provenance tracking, adopted unevenly in Africa.
The Nigerian Guild of Editors’ 2024 guidelines stress source triangulation, yet platforms’ algorithms reward outrage over accuracy X’s 2025 fact-check partnerships remain spotty.
