Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris has, once again, waded into touchy topics after appearing to support the narrative that intimate videos of Equitorial Guinea finance chief Baltasar Engonga, in which he engages in sexual acts with multiple women, were AI-generated.
While speaking at the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa, Passaris was granted an opportunity to address the parliamentarians and she immediately went into the topic of the dangers of AI proliferation across Africa and what it meant for African republics and stability in general.
Using the recent Equitorial Guinea sex scandal, which saw authorities arrest the country’s Director General of the National Financial Investigation Agency (ANIF), Baltasar Engonga, Passaris linked his controversy to AI, seeming to agree that the more than 400 leaked sex tapes may have been manipulated through AI mechanisms.
She said: “I want to touch on Africa commission on human rights and people’s rights. Right now, in all social media, the Director General of the National Financial Investigation Agency in Equitorial Guinea has been trending. He’s been trending because somebody leaked some 400 videos of him having intimate relationships with various women of various stature.”
“And he comes out and says all those were AI-generated. And I look at human rights and people’s rights and I feel like, with the AI coming in, what is the commission doing to ensure that they safeguard people’s rights?”
According to Passaris, the explicit videos depicting the Guinean civil service employee in various steamy sessions with women, some of them prominent and married to high-profile men, were probably AI-generated – and this is from her own assessment after Engonga allegedly linked them to AI.
To this minute, there has not been any publicised official reaction from Engonga – most of the tweets making rounds are from a frivolous X account purporting to belong to the disgraced financial chief.
Also, Passaris did not clearly state how she stumbled upon Engonga’s claim that his videos were AI-generated.
Her comments at the high-profile Pan-African gathering did not impress most Kenyans, with many slamming her for spreading unfounded claims and delving into a matter she clearly did not have a very good grasp on.
“You went all the way to speak about things you have no idea about. The dude in those videos is still in police custody and has not said a word since his arrest. How did you get his statement on AI?” someone on X asked.
Someone else said, “Even the dumbest AI novice can clearly tell a real video from a fake one. How can you not look at a video and tell whether it is AI or not? And you’re the one representing Kenya at such forums? Lord have mercy!”
Reacting to the scandal, the country’s vice president Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue on Monday announced on X that the government would order the “immediate suspension of all civil servants who have had sexual relations in the offices of the ministries, as this constitutes a flagrant violation of the code of conduct and the law on public ethics”.
Nicknamed “Bello” on account of his good looks, Ebang Engonga is a married father and the son of Baltasar Engonga Edjo, the current Chairman of the Commission of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community.
He is also related to the country’s long-serving president.
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