ok sometimes you have to think rather than believing character's words.
the reason itachi came back to konoha was to tell konoha's elders that ''i am still alive'', so if itachi wants to protect konoha why would he attack jiraiya?. but then again if you who is stronger, it would be itachi due to his S-rank genjutsu skills which are a disadvantage to jiraiya. the perfect counter for jiraiya would be genjutsu, and itachi has tskuyomi which jiraiya cannot break. thats why itachi wins against jiraiya.
obito would still be stronger even if hashirama didnt say so. obito has kamui which hashirama needs to know how it works in order to defeat obito. obito has the rinnegan powers and its been stated countless times that he can use all of them, hashirama doesnt have a counter for any of them. obito's mokuton skills arent that good, but with juubi's chakra making his mokuton at least 20 times more powerful, it should be even stronger than hashirama's. and he has the juubi's unimaginable power which makes him unbeatable. do you think hashirama needs to say obito is stronger so that we can believe that obito is stronger? no. you have to look at their feats to compare who is stronger. character's words arent credible unless they dont contradict them selves, or they havent justified yet.
