Dayo Aiyetan is the founding Executive Director of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, Abuja. He was a senior associate editor and Abuja Bureau chief of TELL Magazine, Nigeria’s leading political weekly, until May 2010 when he resigned to set up the Centre. A 1986 graduate of Theatre Arts/English from the University of Ibadan, he started his journalism career in 1989 as a Features Writer with Sketch Newspapers, Ibadan. He worked in Concord Group of Newspapers from 1991 to 2000 where he covered Politics During the closure of Concord by the military regime, he taught Investigative Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba, Lagos. He joined TELL in May 2001 and was at different times, head of BOB (back of the book), head of Politics Desk, head of Business Desk and deputy head of newsroom.
In August 2009, Aiyetan participated in the International Visitors Leadership Program sponsored by the United States State Department which brought together investigative reporters from all over the world for a three week fellowship in Washington and three other cities.
In October, 2010 he returned to Washington as a fellow at the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy, NED. His presentation was on “Combating Corruption in Nigeria: The Promise of Investigative Reporting.
In 2017, he won the prestigious Knight Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan, the first black man to be so honoured.