If a week in politics is a long time, then two years is an eon.

Two years ago today, President Obama was a long way from the budget precipice he is now looking at with others in Congress.

At the time, he was in Africa delivering an electrifying speech in Accra, Ghana and telling his audience that in this “new moment of promise”, Africans can take great strides together by taking greater responsibility for their own futures.

This progress may lack the drama of the 20th century's liberation struggles, but make no mistake: it will ultimately be more significant. For just as it is important to emerge from the control of another nation, it is even more important to build one's own.

The New York Times said that the President – greeted by thousands of well-wishers, colourful signs and joyous songs – brought a message of tough love to the continent where his father was born, with the BBC saying “that [the speech] went down extremely well” with Obama's audience.

For reference, the YouTube video of the speech is found here. Unfortunately, archived speeches on the White House site don’t go back far enough to give readers a full text of this historic speech. But it can be found here.

With increasingly tense budget issues to deal with today, the rapture of Accra seems worlds away.