Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari admitted he is under “tremendous” pressure to establish a national airline due to both patriotic and economic reasons.

Speaking at the State House, Abuja on November 20, 2017, the Nigerian President said the idea of reviving the national carrier has a lot of public support. According to him, the idea is primarily driven by patriotic feelings, but makes economic sense as well, since Nigeria has the needed resources, such as pilots or engineers.

Despite being personally in favor of the idea, Buhari also noted that prior doing that “Nigerians need to know how we lost the one we had before,” according to the Independent Newspapers Nigeria.

If the idea to create a new airline goes through, this will be the third attempt of Nigeria establishing a national carrier. The first national carrier - Nigeria Airways - was founded in 1958 under the name WAAC Nigeria, and lived for 45 years before ceasing operations in 2003. A year later, the attempt to revive the national carrier came into force, with the establishment of Air Nigeria in 2004.  The second airline lived for less than a decade, ceasing its operations in September 2012.