Authenticity questions trail Tinubu-Kagame meeting in Paris as photo looks AI

A photograph of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Paris has triggered debate on social media after a visible Grok watermark appeared on the image shared by the Presidency.

President Tinubu was reported to have met with Kagame on Sunday during a private engagement in the French capital, where both leaders discussed global affairs and issues affecting Africa. However, the image posted on Tinubu’s verified X account drew attention after users noticed the Grok logo at the base of the photograph.

Grok is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, a company owned by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, and is commonly used for image enhancement, real-time searches and content generation.

The same image was also shared by Dada Olusegun, Special Assistant on New Media to the President, further fuelling online reactions, with several Nigerians questioning the authenticity of the photograph and suggesting it may have been artificially generated.

Some social media users openly criticised the presidential aide, accusing the Presidency of using artificial intelligence to create a meeting that should ordinarily have been documented naturally.

“Why are you using Grok to generate a picture of what was supposed to have happened? Is it incompetence or are you trying to tell us something?” one user wrote on X.

However, sources within the Presidency dismissed claims that the image was fabricated, insisting that the photograph was genuine and not AI-generated. According to the sources, the original image captured during the lunch meeting was of poor quality and was only enhanced using Grok to improve clarity before being shared publicly.

They maintained that the meeting between the two leaders did take place as reported.

President Tinubu left Lagos for Europe on December 28 as part of his end-of-year break, during which he has held a series of private engagements, including meetings with African leaders.

Very Nigerian.

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