President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is facing scrutiny after he took to his official X (formerly Twitter) account to share a photo of a high-level diplomatic meeting that featured a visible Grok AI watermark.
The controversy began on Sunday, January 4, 2026, when the President’s handle posted an image showing him at a private lunch with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Paris, France.
Recall that Tinubu departed Nigeria for Europe on December 28, 2025, as part of his end-of-year break.
According to a statement by Bayo Onanuga, spokesperson to the president on information and strategy, Tinubu will travel from Europe to the United Arab Emirates to participate in the 2026 edition of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW 2026) Summit, which is scheduled to take place in January.
Tagging Kagame’s handle, Tinubu wrote on X, “This afternoon, I had a private lunch with H. E. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda to discuss the current state of world affairs and advancing Africa in an ever-changing global landscape.”
Also, Dada Olusegun, special assistant on new media to the president, shared the same image.
While the meeting was intended to showcase discussions on “world affairs and advancing Africa,” the presence of the “Grok” logo in the corner of the image immediately triggered a wave of skepticism among Nigerians.
Many Nigerians immediately questioned why the President had to use a generative artificial intelligence to document official diplomatic engagements.
The Grok AI watermark controversy also raised fundamental questions about the authenticity of government communications, with many users asking if the meeting actually took place or if the imagery was entirely fabricated.
However, in response to the backlash, Temitope Ajayi, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, dismissed the claims of a “fake” meeting as a misrepresentation of facts.
According to him, the meeting did indeed take place in Paris as part of President Tinubu’s diplomatic engagements during his year-end break.
Ajayi explained that Presidents Tinubu and Kagame met in Paris on Sunday, where they had lunch together before later joining French President Emmanuel Macron for dinner the same evening.
He clarified that the photograph in question was taken with a mobile phone, which affected its initial quality. According to him, the image was later enhanced using digital tools to improve clarity, but this did not make it an AI-generated image.
The statement reads: “The narrative that the picture of Presidents Bola Tinubu and Paul Kagame taken in Paris yesterday was AI-generated is not correct.
“The media reports and social media comments that followed are a 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 (yesterday).
“The two leaders later had dinner with President Macron yesterday evening. The picture was taken with a phone and obviously had poor quality.
“The photographer later used Grok to improve the picture quality. That is not a reason to conclude that it was AI-generated.
“The writer or editor should have asked questions before this wrong conclusion.”
However, the failure to crop out the watermark or disclose the use of AI has led to accusations of incompetence.
Critics argue that the Grok AI watermark controversy can become a dangerous precedent where the line between reality and synthetic media becomes blurred at the highest levels of government.
Below are some of the reactions:
