By Frank Ulom
Social media has been agog since Wednesday following the trending photos of lawmakers from Yala Local Government Area. The photos, trending mostly on Facebook, show the Members of the Yala Legislative Council posing for photo sessions in front of their Chambers.
But, are the photos real or artificial intelligence, AI-generated?
The Social Media Post
The photos, shared by multiple sources, show the Legislatures posed for a photo session in front of the Yala Legislative Chambers, which is alleged to be in a deplorable state.
A reckoning voice in Yala, Francis Finian Offionor, confirmed to taking photos as well as making videos of the environment, as shown below.
“I love the fact that the Honourable Councillors from Yala didn’t say a word. I only stood in front, beside and behind the legislature chamber to snap pictures after a plenary session.
“It’s a serious disgrace that the LGA Chairman can’t even keep the environment tidy to an extent.
“It’s shameful that the Council is wearing such a dastardly look, courtesy of the performing Council Chairman,” Offionor stated.
The Photos
Independent Verification By Converseer
When Converseer reached out to one of the Legislators on Saturday, it was confirmed that the photos are real and not AI-generated.
“The truth is, the picture you saw was not AI-generated; that’s the truth. But, the idea was not even to send it out to the social media, the idea was to take the pictures and show to our Chairman directly, let him see how bad the situation is,” the Legislator (name withheld), told Converseer on the phone.
Adding, “Before now, we’ve been talking to him (Chairman), trying to tell him to keep the surroundings clean, but it is as if he does not know the depth of the environment, how bad it is.”
Response From The Chairman’s Spokesperson
Responding to the widely circulated photos, Emmanuel Unah, Chief Press Secretary to Dr Fred Okem, Yala Chairman, in a statement on Thursday, claimed the photographs were AI-generated.
According to Unah, “There are pictures apparently created with AI supposedly depicting the Councillors of Yala Local Government Area standing in front of the Yala legislative Chamber posted on social media to create the scene that the Yala Legislative Chamber is covered with overgrown weeds and vegetation. This, to say the least, is nothing short of mischief taken to its height with the intent to create a caricature of the council’s administration.
“Incidentally, those who created those images are oblivious of the fact that the media team of the Chairman took pictures of the councillors with the Chairman when he went to hold a brief interaction with them soon after the visit of the Cross River State Local Government Service Commission to him in his office.
“If one juxtaposes the pictures taken by the Chairman’s media team with the councillors all adorned in the same dress with the ones they wore on the AI-generated images shows that the pictures taken by the media team clearly show the actual background of the legislative chamber, which was recently renovated, as against the ones created to create mischief.
“Furthermore, a visit by any unbiased person to the Council would reveal that there is a grass-cutting machine presently at work within the council premises. Conscious of the fact that this is the season of high rainfall, which speeds up growth of crops and weeds, the Executive Chairman of Yala Local Government Area, Hon. Elder, Dr Fred Okem, has since deployed a tractor to constantly keep the Council precincts free of any unwanted weeds and grasses,” Unah stated.
He added that presently, “there is a complete re-roofing of the administrative block in the Council, which was devastated by windstorm some weeks back. This speedy response by the Chairman is to ensure comfortable working environment for staff and uninterrupted services to visitors who throng the Council daily for one service or the other.”
Checking The Facts
Using AI detectors to detect the originality of the photos: Deepai.org classified the image as being real, while Quillbot.com returned an error and was unable to analyse the image.
OpenAI.com (ChatGPT) image detector says, “We did not find evidence that the content was generated using OpenAI tools.”
Using Google Gemini AI, it returned, “No reliable signals were detected indicating how the content was created.”
Using Grok AI, it returned, “No, this image does not appear to be AI-generated. It looks like a genuine real-world photograph.”
Verdict
Following the accompanying videos and other photos, and a verification from one of the Legislators and AI tools, we conclude that the photos are real and not AI-generated.
Besides, our reporter has been in the council secretariat in the course of this administration; the look of the place doesn’t fit a contemporary local government secretariat.
Also, images posted by Unah did not show the surroundings of the chambers, so one cannot use that as a yardstick to support his claims.
