Didn't the young state of Belgium have a recurrent pipedream about having a colony of their own?
From what I gather, this was mostly fueled by
Leopold II's desire to drag his country, kicking and screaming if must be, into the XXth century. So it really won't be prominent until 1865, but if we fudge the dates a little, we might end up with Belgian Guinea instead of Belgian Congo.
Not sure if that will be an improvement though.