Lagos State Government and the Government of France, on Friday, sealed a bilateral partnership which lays the foundation for the development of e-sports in Nigeria.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and French ambassador to Nigeria, Mrs. Emmanuelle Blatmann, signed a Memorandum of Understanding enabling professional e-sports players in Lagos to go on real time online community and compete with players around the world to earn fortunes from the multi billion dollar industry.

In the bilateral agreement, the French partners would be delivering a high-grade online video gaming infrastructure that would afford players in Lagos to switch from being casual participants to competitive players in their games of choice across online leagues.

The development was met with excitement from the local association of e-sports players, which described the partnership as long overdue.

E-sports are organised competitive video games played in real time and watched by millions of participants across the world.

There is an estimate of 42 million e-sports players in Nigeria, with Lagos boasting of a growing population of casual and competitive video game players, who invest resources to participate in online competition.