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The National Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Otanka Obetsebi Lamptey, has dismissed government allegations that he is trying to stir up ethnic conflict in the country. The NPP stalwart has come under fire for suggesting on an Accra-based radio station - Oman FM, that Ghana is equally prone to post election violence if the lessons from other African countries were not learnt. He is reported to have said that the violence that erupted in Ivory Coast was championed by the dominant Akan speaking people, who were fighting for their convictions, and what happened in the French-speaking country could happen in Ghana since the Akans in here, who are in the majority are likely to adopt the same strategies if they feel dissatisfied with the upcoming polls. �The majority of the people in Ivory Coast are Akans. The large part of the ethnics in Ghana are Akans. The other tribes and things- you know the colonial [masters] did a line so this side of the line is Ghana; that side of the line is Cote d�Ivoire. And the line goes through a number of villages. So it means the people on this side are actually the same as the people on that side. If they can have violence in Cote d�Ivoire where does it say we can�t have violence in Ghana?� he explained, adding, �where does it say that the people of Ghana are such dummies that they are going to allow themselves to be cheated of their birthright whereas the people in Cote d�Ivoire say they won�t allow themselves to be cheated.� �We have to assume that the same thing, the same reaction can come from the same people,� he noted. But the NPP Chair insists his comments are not �ethnically divisive and explosive� as being portrayed by the NDC government. Speaking on Citi FM�s Eyewitness News on Thursday, Mr Lamptey maintained his comments have been deliberately misinterpreted by members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for their own propaganda machinations. According to the former Tourism Minister under the Kufuor administration, his comments were not meant to incite NPP loyalists to take up arms and to cause mayhem, but was only sounding a note of caution to the Electoral Commission to ensure that the 2012 election is transparent. He said the Electoral Commission�s refusal to call for an early Inter Party Advisory Committee meeting and the delays in the biometric register system are worrying. He said his comments were only meant to tell the EC that members of the NPP would not allow themselves to be taken for granted.