N5,000 Note Featuring President Tinubu’s Image Fake – CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has described as fake a designed new N5,000 bank note with the image of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, circulating on social media.

The dismissal followed claims by netizens on some social media that the CBN has released the first sample of a N5,000 note featuring an image of president Bola Tinubu.

The now-viral image has elicited flurry of reactions from social media users.

But debunking the report, the apex bank in a post on its official X handle, formerly Twitter, said, “This content is fake. Let the public be guided.”

According to the Nation, when the viral image was subjected to an AI detector tool, Hive Moderation, it showed that it contained over 90 per cent AI material.

This indicates that the image has been generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that is part of the social media platform X, the newspaper reports.

Artificial intelligence uses complex computer algorithms to perform tasks otherwise done by humans, like answering questions and writing code.

In 2012, the CBN announced plans to introduce N5,000 notes. But in 2022, the bank backtracked on these plans. Over the years, there have been calls for the introduction of N5,000 notes.

Section 18(a) and 18(b) of CBN Act 2007 gives the Central Bank absolute power (with no legislative intervention) to:

(a) Arrange for the printing of currency notes and the minting of coins;

(b) Issue, re-issue and exchange currency notes and coins at the Bank’s offices and at such agencies as it may, from time to time, establish or appoint.